UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OF 

Dr.    i^KWEST   C.    MOORE 


TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 


TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

A  Handbook  for  Intensive  Fertilization 
of  the  Child  Mind 

for 

Instructors  of  Young  Children 


By 

ADOLF  A.  BERLE,  A.M.,  D.D. 

rORHER   PROFESSOR   OF   APPLIED   CHRISTIANITY   IN  TUFTS   COLLEGE 

Author  of  "The  School  in  the  Home,"  "Christianity  and 

The  Social  Rage."     Director  of  the  Berle 

Home-Correspondence  School. 


New  York 

MOFFAT,  YARD  AND  COMPANY 

1915 


Copyright,  1915.  by 
MOFFAT,  YARD  AND  COMPANY 


W.    F.    BRAINARO 

■OOK    HANUFACTUIIta 

Mnr   ToiiK 


■4 


LC37 


TO 

A.  M,  IL 


^A.\yj.j^\3 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

A   LETTER  TO  TEACHING   PARENTS      .     .      ix 

I    SOME  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES  ...       1 

II    ENGLISH!  ENGLISH!   ENGLISH!     ....     37 

III  GRAMMAR 65 

IV  LANGUAGES        85 

V    GEOGRAPHY 112 

VI     HISTORY 142 

VII     SCIENCE  IN  GENERAL 173 

VIII     PHYSIOLOGY 19G 

IX     BOTANY 220 

X    ZOOLOGY 241 

XI     GEOLOGY 268 

XII     GEOMETRY 294 

XIII  ETHICS        313 

XIV  BIBLIOGRAPHY 341 


A  LETTER  TO  TEACHING 
PARENTS 

My  dear  Friends: 

This  volume  has  come  into  being  by  your 
own  request.  In  my  "School  in  the  Home" 
I  was,  perhaps  unwisely,  led  to  remark  that 
some  day  I  might  wTite  such  a  little  book  as 
this,  for  the  guidance  of  parents  who  believed 
in  the  doctrines  I  taught  in  that  book,  with  the 
result  that  many  hundreds  of  letters  were  re- 
ceived urging  that  it  should  be  written  at  once. 
For  a  long  time  I  hesitated  about  acceding  to 
these  requests,  because  I  feared  that  all  I  should 
do  would  be  to  add  another  to  the  already 
countless  books  on  dealing  with  children,  when 
I  know  that  the  results  depend  vastly  more 
upon  the  consecration  and  ambition  of  the  par- 
ents for  their  children,  than  upon  any  other  sin- 
gle element  of  the  problem.  Indeed,  I  often 
wrote  exactly  this  to  the  many  inquiring  par- 
ents. But  I  was  met  so  often  with  the  state- 
ment that  it  was  merely  guidance  that  was 
needed,  and  that  while  my  book  was  stimulat- 
ing and   inspiring,  on  the  whole  what  was 


X  A  LETTER  TO  TEACHING  PARENTS 

now  needed  was  a  handbook  of  some  sort  which 
sliould  tell  the  parents  "what  to  do." 

After  a  good  deal  of  travail  of  soul  I  have 
attempted  to  do  just  that;  in  fact,  I  have  done 
more.  I  have  tried  to  tell  substantially  what 
I  did  do  and  what  I  still  do,  whenever  I  have 
the  opportunity  to  direct  the  instruction  of  lit- 
tle children.  If  it  sometimes  seems  blind  to 
you,  or  halting  in  meaning,  you  will  under- 
stand that  this  arises  from  the  necessary  limi- 
tations of  the  case.  We  do  many  things  with- 
out knowing  that  we  are  doing  them,  and  con- 
vey a  great  deal  by  our  attitudes  and  our  in- 
clinations, either  for  or  against,  any  given  sub- 
ject. This  of  course  cannot  be  conveyed  in  a 
book  nor  is  it  desirable  that  it  should  be.  But 
in  so  far  as  I  am  able  to  tell  what  I  have  ac- 
tually done  with  little  children,  this  book  tells 
the  story.  I  have  tried  not  to  preach  and 
when  I  seem  to  be  preaching,  you  will  under- 
stand that  I  am  merely  making  a  zealous  ef- 
fort to  make  you  feel  as  I  feel  myself. 

NEGOTIABLE    KNOWLEDGE 

The  essence  of  this  method  of  mine  is,  that  it 
always  deals  with  what  I  have  called  nego- 
tiable kno'wledge.  It  is  one  thing  to  know  a 
thing  practically,  but  it  is  quite  another  to 
know  it  in  a  form  which  makes  it  educationally 


A  LETTER  TO  TEACHING  PARENTS    xi 

negotiable.  Examinations  are  the  test  of  ne- 
gotiable knowledge.  They  aim  to  find  out 
how  much  the  student  knows,  in  the  form  in 
which  the  world  has  decided  that  it  must  be,  to 
be  knowledge.  This  form  I  grant  you,  is  often 
stupid,  cumbersome  and  senseless  from  many 
points  of  view.  But  so  long  as  the  educational 
institutions,  the  scholars  of  the  world,  hold  to 
their  present  ideas  of  what  constitutes  knowl- 
edge, and  particularly  since  they  will  not  rec- 
ognize your  possession  of  their  particular  kind 
of  knowledge,  unless  you  are  able  to  patter  it 
back  to  them  in  the  agreed  vocabulary  of  their 
science,  it  is  useless  to  do  anything  other  than 
master  it  in  their  way.  You  know  how  often 
your  child  will  tell  you  that  their  teachers  will 
not  recognize  the  fact  that  they  know  all  about 
a  given  thing,  unless  they  can  say  it  in  the  pre- 
cise terms  which  the  teachers  lay  down.  It  is 
stupid,  foolish  and  irrational.  But  you  and  I 
must  make  up  our  minds  to  accept  that  fact  as 
a  fact,  and  deal  with  it  as  we  do  with  a  great 
many  other  foolish  and  stupid  things  in  this 
world.  That  is  the  reason  why  in  these  chap- 
ters I  am  constantly  urging  you  to  use  the  ter- 
minology which  the  schoolmen  themselves  em- 
ploy, since  they  will  never  know  and  will  not 
even  try  to  find  out  whether  your  child  has  the 
knowledge  it  is  supposed  to  have,  unless  you 


xii    A  LETTER  TO  TEACHING  PARENTS 

talk  in  the  only  tongue  they  understand. 
When  you  have  knowledge  in  this  form 
you  have  negotiable  knowledge,  education- 
ally speaking.  Without  it  you  are  help- 
less when  you  strike  the  educational  machine. 
Even  then  you  will  have  some  very  curious  ex- 
periences. One  of  my  children,  while  a  fresh- 
man was  taking  the  singular  course  of  train- 
ing in  English  in  Harvard  University  which 
is  called  English  A.  It  was  devised  because 
the  young  freshmen  come  to  college  not  know- 
ing anything  about  their  mother  tongue  and 
by  this  means  are  hurriedly  whipped  into  some 
sort  of  a  working  knowledge  of  educational 
English.  Well,  I  sent  up  a  boy  whose  Eng- 
lish was  highly  developed  and  w^ho  wTote 
themes  which  were  in  the  tongue  of  the  schools. 
You  w^ould  have  supposed  that  his  instructor 
would  w^eep  for  joy  at  finding  a  boy  who  did 
not  need  the  petty  corrections  in  spelling  and 
ordinary  blunders  which  should  be  ehminated 
before  the  grades  are  left.  But  no,  the  aca- 
demic mind,  insane  on  the  subject  of  correction, 
finding  none  of  the  petty  things,  found  fault 
with  what  do  you  suppose?  AMiy  with  the 
faultless  English  of  course !  This  boy's  fresh- 
man year  came  perilously  near  being  upset 
nen^ously,  and  would  have  been  had  we  not 
been  on  the  ground,  by  the  constant  nagging 


A  LETTER  TO  TEACHING  PARENTS        xiii 

at  the  boy  with  this  criticism,  "This  is  not  the 
language  of  a  boy  of  fourteen.  It  is  the  lan- 
guage of  a  man.  Write  naturally!"  In  vain 
the  youth  protested  that  it  teas  his  natural 
tongue,  that  he  did  not  know  any  other,  asked 
if  the  words  were  misspelled  or  wrongly  used 
and  the  like,  no  one  of  which  corrections  were 
needed.  In  vain!  He  was  hammered  right 
and  left  because  his  English  was  not  the  Eng- 
lish of  a  boy  of  fourteen!  All  this  meant  was 
that  the  instructor  was  not  used  to  that  kind  of 
boys.  To  do  this  particular  gentleman  jus- 
tice, he  came  afterward  to  see  his  error.  But 
he  was  the  educational  machine  incarnate. 

Now,  it  being  the  fact  that  the  educational 
machine  will  recognize  no  other  tongue  than 
that  of  the  schools,  there  is  nothing  to  do  but 
to  master  it.  Hence  you  will  speak  to  your 
little  children  about  conduct  but  when  you  dis- 
cuss the  subject  of  conduct,  you  will  say  ethics 
because  presently  your  boy  or  girl  will  have  to 
deal  with  some  half-baked  young  doctor  of 
philosophy,  who  does  not  know  any  other  word 
than  ethics  and  if  you  don't  say  ethics  he  will 
assume  that  you  don't  know  what  you  are  talk- 
ing about.  So  also  when  you  build  blocks  with 
your  children  talk  about  squares,  triangles  and 
polygons  because  these  are  the  words  wliich 
will  have  to  be  used.     Thus  it  is  not  so  ridicu- 


xiv   A  LETTER  TO  TEACHING  PARENTS 

lous  as  it  looks  at  the  first  glance  to  ask  you 
to  instruct  your  children  in  Geolog}%  Botany, 
Physiology,  and  the  rest.  These  are  the  stand- 
ardized terms  for  that  kind  of  knowledge.  It 
is  the  ability  to  use  them  accurately  and  care- 
fully which  makes,  what  I  have  called,  nego- 
tiable knowledge. 

HELP,  don't  fight,  THE  SCHOOL 

For  this  very  reason,  too,  you  must  help,  not 
antagonize  the  schools,  especially  the  elemen- 
tary schools.  They  are  held  in  the  grip  of  this 
machine  as  tightly  as  your  child  will  be  when 
he  gets  to  it.  AVlien  they  make  their  demand 
upon  you  for  what  you  see  clearly  is  foolish 
and  irrational,  I  beseech  you  do  not  waste  your 
strength  in  fighting  them  and  make  trouble  for 
yourself,  your  child,  and  them,  and  most  of  it 
to  no  purpose.  Always  remember  that  the 
public  school  represents  the  lowest  possible  at- 
tainment for  the  groups  with  which  they  work. 
It  cannot  be  otherwise  and  a  superior  child  is 
penalized  by  being  in  them.  Every  teacher 
will  tell  you  that,  and  she  cannot  help  her- 
self. It  is  her  business  to  bring  her  class  at  the 
end  of  the  year  to  a  certain  point.  If  your 
child  can  do  that  work  in  six  months,  she  has 
no  other  resource  than  to  neglect  your  child 
and  give  his  time  to  the  lazy,  the  careless  and 


A  LETTER  TO  TEACHING  PARENTS    xv 

the  undisciplined.  Your  business  then,  is  to 
study  the  school  to  which  your  child  is  to  go 
and  understand  its  plan  and  working  and  fit 
for  that.  You  must  know  their  method  and 
their  aim  and  give  them  what  they  want  in  their 
own  tongue,  because  they  won't  understand 
any  other.  I  know  this,  too,  to  my  cost.  I 
tried  to  send  my  own  children  to  a  High  School 
which  had  not  altered  some  of  its  terms  of  ad- 
mission since  1853!  But  fortunately  there  was 
another  near,  Avhere  there  was  a  sane  enlight- 
ened principal  in  charge,  and  in  this  household, 
the  name  of  Benjamin  Sumner  Hurd,  of  the 
Beverly,  Mass.,  High  School  is  enrolled  upon 
our  calendar  of  educational  saints.  Just  re- 
member that  the  more  unusually  capable  your 
child  is,  the  harder  it  will  be  for  the  ordinary 
public  school  to  know  what  to  do  with  him. 
Don't  blame  them  for  this  but  help  them. 
And  do  not  expect  that  they  can  make  un- 
usual conditions  for  your  child.  Just  fit  him 
for  the  place  to  which  his  attainments  entitle 
him  and  then  place  him  there.  Ask  no  conces- 
sions. And  that  you  may  not  need  to  ask  con- 
cessions, learn  their  tongue ! 

Along  the  pathway  you  will  occasionally 
find  sympathetic  souls  among  the  teachers,  who 
are  groaning  under  the  standardization  lunacy 
quite  as  much  as  you  are.     But  in  any  case 


xvi   A  LETTER  TO  TKACHING  PARENTS 

rcmcniber  tliat  your  travail  will  not  be  without 
results.  Your  child,  trained  by  superior  home 
care  and  nurture,  will  soon  excite  the  envy  of 
other  parents,  and  that  will  make  them  ask 
what  there  is  about  your  children  that  is  better 
than  their  own.  Ai\d  when  tlie  inquiry  begins 
to  be  general,  the  methods  will  begin  to  mend. 
It  only  needs  enough  intelligent  discontent  to 
get  changes  made;  but  it  must  be  backed 
by  understanding  and  sympathy.  So  I  advise 
you  not  to  fight  with  the  schools,  their  officers 
and  teachers;  just  try  to  understand  them,  pity 
them  a  little,  if  you  can,  and  help  them  to  a 
more  excellent  way. 

THE   LAUGHTER   OF   FOOLS 

You  will,  unless  your  experience  differs  from 
that  of  most  pioneers,  or  in  fact  any  people 
who  want  something  finer  and  better  than  the 
average,  have  to  encounter  a  good  deal  of  ridi- 
cule, from  mild  amusement  to  jeering  words, 
because  of  your  attempt  to  make  a  superior 
person  out  of  your  child.  Indeed  many  letters 
wiiich  have  come  to  me  have  indicated  that 
this  is  a  not  uncommon  experience  and  it  some- 
times gives  great  pain  to  timid  persons.  But 
do  not  be  discouraged  and  above  all  do  not  be 
pained  by  the  laughter  of  fools.  There  are 
people  still  who  think  the  use  of  a  toothbrush 


A  LETTER  TO  TEACHING  PARENTS       xvii 

foolishness  and  you  cannot  ride  for  any  length 
of  time  in  an  ordinary  railway  train  without 
becoming  aware  that  there  are  scores  of  people, 
too,  who  do  not  believe  in  bathing.  Well,  you 
do  not  on  that  account  abandon  your  bath,  I 
hope!  So  in  like  manner  do  not  yield  your  am- 
bition for  your  child  to  the  senseless  comments 
of  people  who  have  neither  your  character  nor 
your  ambition,  to  surrender  many  of  the  ab- 
surd social  diversions  for  the  intellectual  wel- 
fare of  their  children.  Just  keep  it  clearly  be- 
fore you  that  the  future  struggles  of  the  world 
are  going  to  be  won  by  brain  power!  And  if 
your  neighbors  think  you  rather  foolish  for  giv- 
ing up  their  tiresome  entertainment  for  your 
child's  well  being  and  mental  growth,  just  let 
them  think  what  they  please.  You  have  a  seri- 
ous purpose  in  life  and  you  want  your  child  to 
have  the  equipment  for  capable  and  effective 
living.  That  is  all  you  need  to  think  about  and 
what  light-minded  social  butterflies  think  about 
anything  is  not  worth  considering  in  any  case. 
This  applies  particularly  to  those  people  who 
are  climbing  socially  and  who  darken  the  air 
with  crazy  counsels  about  social  advancement! 
Be  not  like  unto  them  and  remember  that  there 
always  comes  a  time  for  everybody  in  this 
world  when  they  have  to  live  with  tliemselves. 
Give  your  child  the  opportunity,  that  when  he 


xviii     A  LETTER  TO  TEACHING  PARENTS 

has  to  be  alone  he  is  in  good  company,  because 
he  has  with  him  the  resources  for  finding  the 
best  in  any  situation. 

THE   FUND   OF   SYMPATHY 

You  all  have,  as  your  letters  show,  an  over- 
flowing fund  of  sympathy  and  love  for  your 
children.  Nothing  in  these  many  letters  has 
given  me  more  satisfaction  and  joy  than  has 
been  shown  in  the  unbounded  willingness  on  the 
part  of  parents  to  sacrifice  for  their  children. 
The  note  of  overflowing  love  has  been  every- 
where full  and  wonderful  in  what  resen-es  of 
emotion  it  revealed.  Now  this  fund  of  s^'mj^a- 
thy  with  your  child  is  your  alabaster  box.  Keep 
it  for  the  Highest.  Sacrifice  when  you  must 
but  never  for  anything  but  the  best.  Do  not 
make  sacrifice  for  the  child,  the  support  of  lazi- 
ness, self-indulgence  or  deceit.  Don't  sacrifice 
for  the  joy  of  sacrificing.  Hold  your  precious 
ointment  for  the  highest  purposes  and  only  for 
these.  Everything  j^our  child  can  do  himself 
not  only  let  him  do,  but  make  him  do.  There 
will  be  occasions  enough  for  sacrifice  under  the 
very  best  conditions.  But  do  not  pour  out 
your  costly  emotions  over  trifles  and  let  them 
become  your  o^^^l  undoing.  One  of  my  pro- 
fessors in  the  theological  seminary,  a  wise  and 
devoted  man,  himself  a  pastor  of  many  years' 


A  LETTER  TO  TEACHING  PARENTS   xix 

experience  and  a  sympathetic  soul  if  ever  one 
breathed,  once  delivered  a  lecture  upon  the 
ministry  to  the  afflicted  in  which  he  dealt  with 
a  class  of  people  who  "hug  their  grief."  I 
did  not  then  know  what  I  now  know  about 
such  things.  But  there  are  people  who  simply 
luxuriate  in  their  grief.  In  the  same  way 
many  parents,  notably  mothers,  luxuriate  in 
their  sacrifices  for  their  children  to  the  ex- 
tent of  robbing  them  of  honor,  self-reliance, 
truthfulness  and  capabilitj'-  in  many  directions. 
They  call  it  being  a  "good"  mother.  Some- 
times it  is  a  "good"  father.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  it  is  often  a  form  of  self-indulgence. 
Now  I  believe  in  good  mothers.  In  fact  much 
of  the  credit  given  to  me,  in  this  matter  of 
child  training,  belongs  to  such  a  mother  and 
while  I  have  thimdered  more  in  the  index,  she 
has  been  a  silent  effective  ally  in  everything 
that  I  did,  when  I  was  not  merely  the  ally  my- 
self. But  sympathy  is  a  powerful  stimulant. 
Used  rightly  it  does  wonders  in  the  way  of  re- 
cuperation, uj^lifting  and  pacifying  life.  But 
because  it  is  so  powerful  it  must  be  used  with 
great  discretion.  Always  keep  in  mind  that 
when  your  boy  gets  out  into  the  world,  he  won't 
get  any  kind  of  "sympathy"  for  anything. 
He  will  be  judged  by  the  merciless  standard 
(the  only  one  possible)  of  whether  he  is  what 


XI    A  LETTER  TO  TEACHING  PARENTS 

he  purports  to  be,  can  do  what  he  is  set  to  do, 
do  it  wisely,  honorably  and  effectively,  and  be 
a  livable  human  being  at  the  same  time.  No- 
body ordinarily  speaking  will  take  the  trouble 
to  "understand"  him.  For  this  reason  he  must 
understand  himself  and  be  able  to  lean  on  his 
own  understanding,  always,  of  course,  remem- 
bering that  man  proposes  but  God  disposes. 
Do  not  risk  his  ultimate  success  by  providing 
a  fountain  of  sympathy  which  he  can  turn  on 
at  will,  whether  there  be  adequate  cause  or  not. 
Costly  things  should  be  sparingly  used.  You 
know  of  course  what  I  mean. 

FINALLY 

I  would  not  be  true  to  myself  or  to  you,  if  I 
did  not  add  one  little  word  on  the  spiritual 
greatness  of  this  task  of  yours.  You  are  rear- 
ing a  child,  who  is  not  only  yours,  but  also  a 
child  of  God.  Make  it  worthy  of  the  God 
whose  child  it  is  and  who  gave  it.  That  will 
often  mean  for  you  much  thinking  in  the  still 
silent  hours  of  the  night,  when  your  heart  is 
thumping  with  anxiety  or  expectation,  and 
then  you  will  know  whether  or  not  you  have 
done  your  work  in  the  love  of  God  and  whether 
in  dealing  with  this  little  soul  entrusted  to  you, 
you  have  been  faithful  in  that  which  is  least, 
that  you  might  be  entrusted  with  the  greater 


A  LETTER  TO  TEACHING  PARENTS   xxi 

glory  of  seeing  the  matured,  glorified  results  of 
your  work.  When  any  child  of  mine  or  one 
entrusted  to  me  went  up  for  examinations,  I 
always  felt  that  it  was  not  they,  but  I,  who  was 
on  trial.  It  was  the  judgment  upon  my  o^vn 
fidelity  and  obedience  to  my  task  as  a  father  or 
teacher.  What  travail  those  hours  contained! 
How  anxiously  I  waited  for  them  to  emerge 
from  their  examination  rooms  and  eagerly 
looked  into  their  faces,  to  find  out  whether 
they  bore  the  joy  of  triumph  or  the  fear  of  de- 
feat! Your  letters,  many  of  them,  show  me 
that  you  have  the  same  anxieties.  Keep  the 
big  fund  of  your  heart's  love  for  these  times 
and  then  let  j^ourself  and  your  child  know  that 
love  is  the  greatest  thing  in  the  world  and  that 
when  love  has  done  her  best,  there  can  be  only 
joy  in  what  comes,  be  it  success  or  be  it  failure. 
But  you  will  not  fail!  You  are  doing  God's 
work  and  taking  up  a  God-appointed  task. 
In  His  cause  there  is  no  defeat. 

For  the  numberless  kind  words  directed  to 
me  personally,  I  can  only  return  sincere  and 
cordial  thanks.  Somehow,  through  space, 
there  has  been  established  between  you  and  me, 
a  bond  of  afl^ection  because  of  our  common  love 
for  little  children.  Let  us  together  be  always 
mindful  that  the  Great  Teacher  showed  the 


xxii      A  LETTER  TO  TEACHING  PARENTS 

world,  the  value  and  importance  of  the  child. 
We    shall    know    the    child    best,    viewing    it 
through  His  eyes,  and  loving  it  with  His  spirit. 
Faithfully  yours, 

A.  A.  Berle. 
Cambridge,  Mass., 
June  1,  1915. 


TEACHING  IN   THE 
HOME 

CHAPTER  I 

SOME  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES 

To  set  out  upon  the  business  of  training  a 
parent  teacher  is  not  as  simple  a  task  as  it  often 
appears.  That  must  be  evident  to  all  from  the 
results  which  we  get  in  the  training  of  our 
public  school  teachers  who  are  held  to  regular 
hours,  regular  studies,  and  regular  discipline. 
The  result  even  under  these  conditions  to  which 
may  be  added  authorit}^  and  other  forms  of 
direct  control,  is  not  always  good  or  even  cred- 
itable. In  trying  to  discuss  this  matter  with 
parents  there  are  many  difficulties  which  are 
not  present  in  the  situation  just  mentioned. 
Most  parents  are  persons  mature  enough  to 
know  their  o\vn  minds,  especially  with  refer- 
ence to  their  own  children.  That  often  means 
that  they  are  not  teachable  though  they  would 
be  the  last  to  admit  it.  Then  again,  they  love 
their  children  often  unreasonably  and  irration- 


2  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

ally,  and  when  they  are  very  young,  harmfully 
mistake  their  affectionate  indulgence  of  the 
children  for  love  of  the  children,  when,  in  fact, 
it  is  nothing  but  laziness  or  self-indulgence. 
It  is  very  much  easier  to  admire  your  children 
than  to  train  them!  It  is  very  much  simpler 
to  think  of  their  present  guileless  and  attrac- 
tive youth  than  their  incapable  and  undisci- 
plined maturity.  The  parent  as  a  subject  of 
instruction  is  a  very  distinct  problem,  because 
the  parent  must  operate  from  force  of  charac- 
ter not  by  reason  of  compulsion  or  external 
authority.  There  is  nobody  to  call  him  or  her 
to  account  and  inflict  a  penalty  if  the  duty  to 
the  child  is  not  done.  Superior  authority 
yields  but  hardly  to  other  authority.  Armj^ 
officers  will  tell  you  that  a  general  officer  is 
the  hardest  man  in  the  army  to  command.  He 
is  used  to  giving  not  receiving  commands. 
That  is  the  reason.  It  is  just  so  with  parents. 
They  are  accustomed  to  give  orders  not  to  re- 
ceiving them.  Hence  they  find  it  hard  to  do 
what  they  are  told,  even  though  they  recognize 
what  is  told  them  as  desirable  and  just.  The 
wise  and  ambitious  parent  will  keep  this  con- 
stantly in  mind.  With  your  own  child  you  are 
liable  to  be  warped  in  judgment,  make  excuses 
w^here  none  are  possible,  and  invent  reasons 
where  none  exist,  for  not  doing  what  reason 


SOME  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES         S 

and  conscience  command  should  be  done. 
Children  come  out  of  the  exercise  of  the  high- 
est and  dearest  affections  and  emotions  of 
which  mankind  is  capable.  For  this  reason 
they  need  to  be  carefully  guarded  from  the  un- 
wise influence  of  those  emotions. 

Then  again,  the  parents,  being  subject  to  no 
rule  but  their  own  disposition,  are  constantly 
in  danger  of  altering  their  plans  for  the  chil- 
dren and  their  programs  with  them,  to  meet  the 
changing  conditions  from  day  to  day.  They 
are  aided  in  this,  by  the  fact  that  the  children 
are  unable  to  make  any  effective  protest. 
Thus  a  mother  may  plan  to  teach  her  child  a 
given  lesson  at  a  given  hour.  Something  oc- 
curs to  her  as  desirable  perhaps  even  necessary, 
in  a  qualified  way,  which  conflicts  with  this 
arrangement.  Nobody  but  her  own  con- 
science— that  is,  herself — can  hold  her  to  her 
task.  Now,  of  course,  this  does  not  refer  to 
emergencies  which  cannot  be  denied,  but  mere 
conflicts  which  could  be  met  and  provided  for 
or  if  not  provided  for,  could  be  resisted.  What 
usually  happens — I  think  I  may  say  usually — 
is  that  the  child  is  neglected  on  the  subcon- 
scious theory  that  there  is  plenty  of  time.  But 
what  has  taken  place  is  the  surrender  of  the 
program  itself,  the  child  as  the  major  interest, 
and  in  time,  this  sort  of  thing  will  break  up  the 


4  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

j)r()<rraiii  cnliicly.  Nobody  can  teach,  least  of 
all  a  parent,  in  a  desultory  way. 

In  a  similar  manner,  the  child  often  breaks 
up  the  arrangement  by  wliat  seems  like  indis- 
position or  ill  health,  which  in  the  parental  mind 
is  instantly  exaggerated  into  a  danger  and  the 
program  abandoned.  Real  things,  of  course, 
must  be  heeded.  But  it  is  in  times  like  these 
that  the  real  battle  is  being  fought.  The  child 
very  soon  learns  whether  the  parent  takes  the 
duty  seriously  or  lightly,  yields  it  readily  or 
otherwise  and  adapts  itself  accordingly,  espe- 
cially if  there  is  any  natural  disposition  to  re- 
sist specific  and  direct  control.  That  of  course 
is  fatal  to  any  effective  work.  Parents  may 
be  sure  that  nine  out  of  ten  such  instances 
when  they  arise,  come  out  of  their  needless 
fears.  Stick  to  the  program  until  the  signs  of 
trouble  are  tangible  enough  to  be  diagnosed. 
That  is  what  your  doctor  would  do.  That  is 
all  he  could  do.  Just  see  the  program  when 
you  make  it  through,  until  something  very  de- 
cisive intervenes.  The  number  of  such  things 
is  very  small.  Practice  makes  perfect  in  this 
as  in  most  things. 

The  routine  of  the  cliild  training  should  be 
incorporated  in  the  general  routine  of  the  home, 
precisely  as  every  other  thing  is  provided  for, 
meals,  recreation,  sleep  and  the  like.     Not  so 


SOME  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES         5 

to  incorporate  it  is  to  leave  it  to  caprice,  acci- 
dent or  inclination,  any  one  of  which  is  fatal  to 
successful  home  training.  Routine  is  not 
everything  but  it  is  the  base  upon  which  suc- 
cessful work  is  built.  Regularity  as  to  time,  is 
as  important  as  to  mental  training,  as  it  is  in 
diet  and  the  care  of  the  body.  It  is  even  more 
important,  because  the  steady  impact  of  the 
parent  mind  with  the  child  mind  makes  for 
understanding  and  settles  the  preliminary  mat- 
ters of  disposition,  ability  to  persist,  skill  in  ex- 
position and  reveals  not  only  the  defects  of 
the  child,  but  what  is  quite  as  essential  to  be 
known  and  understood,  the  defects  of  the  par- 
ent. The  mother  needs  to  know  her  own 
strong  points  and  her  own  weak  ones  as  well 
as  those  of  the  child.  Only  regularity  can  dis- 
cover these  and  upon  this  discovery  rests  very 
considerably  all  efficiency. 

Steadiness  and  regularity  moreover  are  ab- 
solutely necessary  if  the  teaching  parent  is  to 
know  what  measure  of  progress  is  made.  For 
this  purpose,  a  record  of  each  day's  experiences 
should  be  kept  at  least  for  a  year.  The  last 
thing  of  each  day,  should  be  a  careful  reflective 
summing  up  of  what  the  day  has  brought 
forth.  If  this  can  be  done  by  both  parents 
together,  it  will  be  more  than  doubled  in  value. 
Comparison  of  ideas  and  observations  by  both 


6  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

parents,  hrings  both  into  the  task  and  makes 
each  the  corrective  of  the  other.  It  will  be 
found  also  to  make  each  parent  more  observ- 
lUfr,  and  in  general,  the  father  who  will  gen- 
erally be  out  of  the  home  a  good  portion  of 
each  day,  will  be  able  at  meals  to  test  and  com- 
pare results  at  given  periods  from  his  own 
standjioint.  The  mother  can  by  daily  com- 
parison, direct  this  observation  by  the  father, 
and  often  find  the  reason  for  things  which 
elude  her  because  she  is  constantly  with  her 
child.  It  will  be  seen  at  once  that  this  is  quite 
as  needful  for  the  parents  as  for  the  children, 
though  the  benefits  accrue  to  all. 

Wherever  it  is  possible  to  alternate  the  par- 
ents in  teaching  this  should  be  done.  The  rea- 
sons for  this  have  already  been  suggested. 
But  there  is  the  special  reason  that  it  makes 
for  unity  of  purpose  and  tends  to  organize  the 
home  for  the  intensive  development  of  the  child. 
It  tends  to  prevent  the  development  from  be- 
coming one-sided.  It  affords  the  child  an  op- 
portunity for  comparing,  without  knowing 
how  or  why,  the  differences  of  attitude  and 
approach  between  the  father  and  the  mother. 
It  softens  the  mental  attitude  of  a  child  nat- 
urally tending  to  resistance,  and  strengthens 
that  of  a  child  which  naturally  yields.  A 
"mother's  boy"  should  have  a  good  deal  of  con- 


SOME  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES         7 

tact  with  his  father.  A  "father's  boy"  should 
have  a  good  deal  to  do  with  his  mother.  Any 
one-sided  development  should  instantly  be  at- 
tacked by  emphasis  on  the  other.  Wisely 
done  this  yields  unity  of  family  life  and  this 
atmosphere  is  the  one  in  which  the  greatest 
development  is  secured. 


Coming  now  more  directly  to  the  principles 
governing  the  parent  teacher,  the  fu*st  is,  do 
not  underestimate  the  capacity  of  the  child. 
You  will  never  accomplish  anything  in  which 
you  do  not  heartily  believe.  Take  it  as  an 
axiom,  that  most  children  can  do  many  times 
more  of  serious  mental  work  than  most  people 
and  especially  their  parents,  give  them  credit 
for.  Never  permit  yourself  to  doubt  this. 
Most  of  the  talk  about  overwork  has  to  do, 
not  with  productive  work  of  the  child,  but  with 
the  things  which  have  nothing  whatever  to  do 
with  the  growth  and  expansion  of  the  child's 
mind.  ^lany  adult  persons  are  tired  out  with 
meetings,  social  engagements  and  other  worth- 
less things,  which  sap  their  strength  and  leave 
no  increment  of  knowledge,  experience  or  per- 
sonal quality.  It  is  just  so  with  the  child.  Do 
not  let  its  energies  be  sapped  by  worthless 
things.     Its  play  can  be  made  just  as  produc- 


8  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

tive  as  anything  else.  Its  social  companion- 
ship should  he  looked  to,  not  merely  with  ref- 
erence to  relaxation.  You  know  the  story  of 
the  man  who  boasted  that  he  had  not  drawn  a 
pail  of  water  for  thirty  years?  The  simple  ex- 
planation was,  that  he  attached  his  well-sweep 
to  his  front  gate  and  every  person  who  came  in 
and  every  one  who  went  out  had  to  draw  a  pail 
of  water  by  that  act.  Make  every  act  tell 
toward  your  main  end!  Nor  does  this  mean 
that  you  are  making  a  machine  of  your  child, 
though  that  is  exactly  what  you  do  with  ref- 
erence to  its  muscular  development.  But  you 
get  the  steady  gains,  small  gains  often,  but 
always  something  gained.  All  this  rests 
upon  an  unshakable  belief  that  your  child  has 
large  possibihties.  Believe  that  with  all  your 
heart.  Assume  that  no  prodigy  ever  discov- 
ered is  superior  to  your  own  child,  except  in 
the  degree  of  attention  which  it  received  or  the 
opportunities  with  which  it  was  surrounded. 
Whatever  skepticism  there  has  been  in  edu- 
cational and  other  interested  circles  on  this 
matter  of  child  capacity,  is  rapidly  being  dis- 
pelled. But  you  can  readily  convince  your- 
self, by  simply  comparing  the  work  which  is 
being  done  in  the  high  schools  to-day  with 
that  which  was  done  twenty  years  ago.  This 
is  especially  true  when  you  examine  the  text- 


SOME  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES         9 

books  on  science.  But  it  is  hardly  less  true 
about  everything  else.  That  must  mean  sim- 
ply that  children  to-day  have  shared  in  the 
general  advance  in  knowledge  to  such  a  de- 
gree that  much  higher  work  can  be  attempted 
to-day  than  was  possible  twenty  years  ago. 
But  always  keep  in  mind  that  the  public  school 
represents  the  lowest  rate  of  advance.  It  has 
to  provide  for  the  lazy,  the  indolent,  the  in- 
capable, the  vicious,  and  defective.  That, 
you  must  understand,  means  a  rate  of  growth 
which  is  necessarily  very  much  lower  than  is 
possible  to  a  normal,  healthy  child,  reared  in  a 
home  where  the  parents  take  an  active,  vigor- 
ous part  in  the  home  education.  Dismiss, 
therefore,  any  doubt  on  this  point.  Of  course, 
if  your  child  is  sick  or  defective  or  otherwise 
maimed,  that  is  another  question.  I  am  now 
speaking  of  healthy,  normal  children.  As- 
sume that  the  capacity  of  that  child  should 
be  a  generation  greater  than  your  own.  As- 
sume that  whether  it  gets  that  heritage  de- 
pends upon  you  and  you  alone! 

For  this  reason  you  should  never  see  "How 
much  better  our  \VilIie  gets  along  than  the 
Jones's  Willie."  Compare,  if  you  must  com- 
pare, with  the  superior  children  of  your  ac- 
quaintances, those  commonly  supposed  to  be 
specially     highly     endowed,     and     find     out 


10  TKACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

whether  tliis  is  true  or  whether  there  is  some- 
thin*^  at  work  for  tliis  superior  ehild  whieh  is 
not  at  work  for  yours.  In  faet,  never  think 
about  the  inferiors  in  anything.  Keep  your 
mind  steadily  on  the  fact  that  not  one  person 
in  ten  thousand  ever  develops  to  his  full  capa- 
bility, by  reason  of  the  lack  of  careful  over- 
sight and  correction.  Your  faith  in  your 
child's  capacity  in  this  matter  will  very  quickly 
communicate  itself  to  any  healthy,  normal 
child.  But  it  must  not  be  simply  foolish 
pride!  It  must  be  linked  with  steady  and 
often  rigorous  discipline.  The  communica- 
tion of  faith  in  himself  to  the  young  child  is 
a  great  step  toward  the  achievement  of  almost 
anything  he  undertakes.  Therefore  you 
should  cultivate  it  and  keep  the  ideals  you 
have  formed  for  the  child  steadily  before  him. 
If,  for  example,  you  are  planning  to  send  this 
boy  or  girl  to  college,  let  that  be  assumed  from 
the  beginning.  Never  argue  it,  just  take  it 
for  granted,  as  "When  you  get  to  college,"  or 
"When  you  are  in  college,"  or  the  like,  never 
opening  the  question  as  being  a  matter  of 
doubt.  Even  stupid  persons,  very  many  of 
them,  stmnble  through  on  this  basis,  because 
they  never  think  of  the  possibility  of  doing 
anything  else.  The  value  and  necessity  of 
study  as  a  part  of  youth  should  be  assumed  in 


SOME  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES       11 

just  this  way.  Do  not  now  imagine  that  this 
is  a  suggestion  toward  playing  with  this  mat- 
ter. You  must  beheve  it  yourself,  because 
there  is  sound  reason  for  it.  Faith  does  all 
sorts  of  wonderful  things,  not  only  in  religion, 
but  in  life.  But  here  we  are  on  the  sound 
ground  of  experience.  It  will  not  do  to  start 
in  "to  see  if  this  can  be  accomplished"!  You 
must  start  in  to  train  your  child  in  certain 
things  definitely,  clearly,  and  effectively. 
You  must  keep  these  things  steadily  in  mind. 
You  must  repeat  them  to  yourself  till  you  can- 
not think  of  anything  else  in  that  connection, 
and  automatically  set  about  it.  This  is  exactly 
what  you  do  in  everything  else.     Do  it  here. 

President  Eliot  has  stated  with  exactness 
what  the  elementary  training  should  do.  He 
says,  "These,  then,  are  the  four  things  in 
which  the  individual  youth  should  be  thor- 
oughly trained,  if  his  judgment  and  reasoning 
power  are  to  be  systematically  developed: 
observing  accurately;  recording  correctly; 
compariiig,  groujnng  and  inferring  justly; 
and  expressing  cogently  the  results  of  these 
mental  operations."  ^  Get  those  four  things 
firmly  fixed  in  your  own  mind  and  see  what 
kind  of  a  grip  they  have  on  your  own  mental 
operations.     How  accurately  can  you  observe 

1  American  Contributions  to  Civilization,  p.  219. 


li  TEACHING  IX  THE  HOME 

things  about  you?  How  correctly  can  you  re- 
cord those  observations?  How  justly  can 
you  comi^are,  group,  or  infer,  from  these  ob- 
servations? How  cogently  can  you  express 
the  results  of  these  mental  operations?  To 
ask  yourself  these  things  is  the  quickest  way 
to  understand  what  you  must  do  for  your 
child.  And  you  will  be  astonished  to  find 
how  speedily  these  processes  can  be  developed 
and  with  what  wonderful  results.  But  you 
cannot  begin  all  this  by  saying  either  actually, 
or  subconsciously  to  yourself,  "Well,  he  could 
not  be  expected  to  see  that,"  or  "He  could  not 
be  expected  to  do  that,"  and  the  like.  You 
must  expect  him  to  begin  right  and  steadily 
help  him  till  he  habitually  gets  on  the  right 
track.  When  he  gets  on  the  right  track, 
things  will  go  swiftly  enough.  The  hardest 
part  of  this  work  is  patience  and  faith  in  the 
beginning.  Over  and  over  again,  you  will 
say  to  yourself,  "It  can't  be  done,"  and  then 
you  must  simply  recover  by  answering,  "It 
can  and  it  has  been  done,"  and  begin  again. 
Your  belief  in  the  child's  capacity  for  knowl- 
edge will  grow  by  leaps  and  bounds,  when  you 
have  once  established  in  your  own  mind  that 
you  have  it  and  have  communicated  it  to  your 
child.  According  to  your  faith,  so  be  it  unto 
you,  is  a  sound  maxim  in  this  as  in  other  things. 


SOME  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES       13 

Sustained  ability  is  often  developed  by  con- 
stant trying.  Mere  failure  at  any  given  time 
means  nothing.  The  ultimate  development  of 
anything  is  what  shows  the  real  result.  But 
you  will  not  fail,  because  here  is  your  highest 
task  in  the  world  placed  entirely  in  your  care 
and  keeping,  with  you  in  supreme  command, 
to  make  it  or  mar  it. 

"Whatever  success  I  have  had  in  life,"  wrote 
Lord  Westbury,  Lord  High  Chancellor  of 
England,  "is  due  to  the  care  and  skill  with 
which  my  father  formed  and  disciplined  my 
mind."  ^  Lord  Westbury  was  the  son  of  a 
poor  physician,  in  debt  much  of  the  time,  with 
an  invalid  wife,  who  could  give  him  little  or  no 
help,  who,  at  six  years  of  age  was  so  sick  that 
he  was  not  expected  to  live !  Yet  he  was  ma- 
triculated at  Wadham  College,  Oxford,  at 
fourteen,  and  graduated  with  distinction  at 
eighteen,  never  having  had  the  so-called  "pub- 
lic school"  education.  It  was  the  father's  faith 
and  pride  which  made  this  possible.  "On  see- 
ing the  small,  eager-faced  lad  in  his  round 
jacket  and  frilled  collar,  the  warden  of  Wad- 
ham,  Dr.  Tourney,  turned  to  the  father  and 
remarked  that  children  were  not  admitted  to 
the  college.  "You  will  not  find  my  son  a  cliild, 
sir,  when  he  is  examined ;  moreover,  he  has  de- 

iLi/e  of  Lord  Westbury,  Vol,  I,  p.  11. 


14  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

termined  to  win  a  scholarship  for  himself,"  was 
the  rej)ly.  "What,"  exclaimed  the  astonished 
warden,  "you  will  allow  him  to  try  for  a  schol- 
arship at  his  age?  Do  you  know  that  he  will 
have  to  compete  with  young  men  of  seventeen 
and  eighteen?  You  must  indeed  think  your 
son  a  prodigy."  "Sir,  I  do  think  him  a  prod- 
ig\%"  was  the  proud  rejoinder/ 

That  is  the  spirit  which  must  inaugurate  the 
work  of  the  parent  as  teacher.  Here  was  a 
case  where  there  were  few  of  the  supposed  con- 
ditions out  of  which  "prodigies"  come.  Yet 
the  father's  persistence  and  oversight  never 
flagging,  gave  to  his  son  the  care  and  the  at- 
tention which  produced  one  of  the  most  re- 
markable lawyers  of  England.  Nor  is  this  an 
isolated  case.  Many  such,  of  course,  to  a 
lesser  degi-ee,  have  come  to  my  own  knowl- 
edge, where  the  deep  and  abiding  faith  of  the 
parent  reacted  as  a  most  powerful  stimulant 
upon  the  child,  and  this  created  power,  where 
none  existed  before.  The  parental  faith  is  not 
faith  alone  for  the  parent.  It  is  mental  capi- 
tal for  the  child,  which  breathes  in,  daily,  the 
unshaken  belief  of  the  parent  in  its  powers, 
and  consciously  and  subconsciously  organizes 
its  little  life  to  meet  those  expectations.  Out 
of  the  effort  come  quick  powers  of  comprehen- 

1  Lifo  of  Lord  Weslbury,  Vol.  I,  p.  13. 


SOME  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES       15 

sion  and  observation  of  the  parental  require- 
ment and  thought  which  are  both  stimulant 
and  fertilizer. 

II 

A  second  principle  of  utmost  importance, 
is  one  which  has  to  do  with  a  careful  and  sys- 
tematic record  of  the  child.  No  amount  of  de- 
votion can  take  the  place  of  the  matter  of  writ- 
ing daily,  or  at  least  weekly,  a  record  of  what 
the  day  or  week  has  brought  forth.  The  last 
thing  each  day  after  the  conversation  already 
hinted  at,  is  that  the  teaching  parent  shall 
make  a  careful  and  accurate  record  of  what  has 
happened  of  importance  in  the  mental  life  or 
exhibit  of  the  child.  Things  that  seem  trivial 
enough  as  they  occur,  assume  a  vast  importance 
when  they  are  repeated  many  times.  Nobody 
has  the  memory  to  recall  all  the  interesting 
things  that  appear  as  lessons  are  given,  or  hab- 
its formed.  Some  of  the  most  striking  will  lin- 
ger in  the  mind,  of  course.  But,  even  so,  they 
will  hardly  be  remembered  exactly,  and  will 
form  the  basis,  unless  carefully  written  down, 
of  legendary  tales.  "Writing,"  says  Lord  Ba- 
con, "maketh  an  exact  man."  You  will  re- 
member, perhaps,  that  at  the  head  of  every 
patient's  bed  in  a  well  ordered  hospital,  there 
is  a  chart  which  records  temperature,  pulse,  diet 


16  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

and  various  other  things,  so  that  the  examin- 
ing physician  on  liis  rounds  can  know  exactly 
what  has  occurred  in  the  previous  twenty-four 
hours,  and  be  governed  accordingly.  You 
will  observe,  too,  that  these  things  are  con- 
nected by  a  line  which,  at  a  glance,  shows 
whether  the  temperature  went  up  or  down,  or 
remained  stationary.  Something  of  the  same 
kind  should  be  done  by  the  parent-teacher,  es- 
pecially as  regards  certain  things  which  will  be 
mentioned  hereafter.  With  a  little  child,  the 
first  use  of  new  words  should  thus  be  recorded. 
The  unusual  happenings  of  speech,  singular 
questions,  moments  of  quickness  or  moments 
of  dulness,  and  the  subjects  in  w^hich  they  oc- 
cur, should  be  thus  recorded.  The  things  that 
enlist  interest  most  quickly  should  be  set 
down,  and  the  things  where  most  effort  is 
required  should  be  similarly  noted.  These 
are  but  a  few.  But  in  any  case  there  should 
be  a  record  of  observation.  This  is  not  only 
interesting  in  itself,  but  may,  as  it  grows, 
indicate  with  almost  absolute  precision  how 
further  progress  is  to  be  made.  It  may  show, 
for  example,  what  subjects  require  the  least  at- 
tention, and  those  which  require  most,  and  thus 
simplify  the  matter  of  expenditure  of  time. 
It  may  indicate,  as  it  grows,  with  precision 
the  line  of  further  development.     It  may  re- 


SOME  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES       17 

veal  special  aptitudes  and  inclinations.  It 
may  show  recurrence  of  moods.  It  may  show 
subjects  around  which  habits  of  resistance 
most  readily  form,  and  all  this  is  most  valu- 
able, not  merely  for  saving  time,  but  for  get- 
ting results. 

How  important  this  is  may  be  judged  from 
another  illustration  from  the  field  of  medicine. 
Formerly,  when  an  operation  was  performed, 
it  was  thought  needful  merely  to  supply  good 
conditions,  and  careful  provision  for  the  per- 
formance of  the  operation  itself.  Now  it  is 
the  rule  in  well-appointed  hospitals,  before  any 
operation  is  performed,  to  make  a  careful  and 
complete  inventory  of  everything  in  the  room 
and  check  up  after  the  operation  everything 
that  is  left!  Why  was  this  necessary?  Sim- 
ply because  even  skilled  men,  actuated  by  the 
very  best  intentions  possible,  were  not  able  to 
remember  everything,  and  often  sponges,  some- 
times instruments,  and  sometimes  still  other 
things,  were  left  in  the  wounds,  and  infinite 
damage  done  to  the  patient.  Wise  doctors  do 
not  take  these  risks  any  longer.  Hence  a 
careful  and  complete  record!  Precisely  the 
same  principle  applies  here.  Write  what  you 
find  from  day  to  day.  Defects  of  enunciation 
or  vocalization  are  most  important  to  be  noted, 
and  corrected.     The  progress  of  their  elimina- 


18  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

tion  can  be  noted  only  by  going  back  over  the 
record,  to  find  out  what  has  been  the  experi- 
ence of  the  past.  It  must  not  be  supposed,  let 
me  say  in  passing,  that  this  is  a  hardship.  It 
will,  in  fact,  be  found  a  genuine  pleasure  as  it 
grows,  because  the  parent  will  often  find  it  as 
true  an  index  of  herself,  as  of  the  child.  She 
has  thus  an  absolutely  true  transcript  of  her 
own  fidelity  and  devotion,  and  to  a  certain  de- 
gree, of  her  own  eflSciency.  She  will  be  able  to 
note  whether  certain  efforts  of  hers  have  been 
successful  or  not.  She  will  be  able  to  see  re- 
sults which  will  encourage  and  cheer,  to  say 
nothing  of  making  a  personal  study  which  may 
be  of  high  value  to  others  when  it  is  complete. 
Besides  it  may  be  a  family  possession  which 
may  become  priceless. 

Write  then,  and  write  freely.  Do  not  be 
afraid  of  recording  trivial  things,  because 
many  things  seem  trivial  and  unimportant 
which  are  not  so  at  all.  Just  consider  how 
they  do  these  things  in  a  psychological  labora- 
tory. Here  they  will  take  a  worm,  for  ex- 
ample, and  carefully  try  out  all  sorts  of  exj^eri- 
ments  with  it,  watch  every  movement,  and 
make  an  accurate  and  detailed  record  of  it. 
How  long  it  took  to  find  the  hole  out  of  the 
little  box  where  there  was  a  light,  how  long  it 
took  to  find  out  that  it  must  not  go  to  a  hole 


SOME  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES       19 

where  there  was  a  httle  electric  wire  which 
gave  it  a  shght  shock,  how  long  it  took  to  de- 
velop this  habit,  or  that  habit,  and  the  like. 
Now,  if  it  is  worth  while  to  do  that  for  the  sake 
of  human  knowledge  with  a  worm,  what  ought 
a  parent  to  be  willing  to  do  for  a  child?  Simi- 
larly, think  how  laboriously  investigators  have 
to  watch,  day  after  day,  plants,  animals,  and 
other  natural  phenomena,  many  days,  with  no 
result  at  all,  apparently,  except  the  lapse  of 
time.  Surely  the  parent  ought  to  be  willing 
to  give  a  fraction  of  such  attention  to  the  child ! 
Or,  think  how  laboriously  animal  trainers  take 
time  and  effort  to  train  horses,  dogs,  and  even 
fleas,  to  get  a  certain  result.  Now,  if  it  is 
worth  while  to  write  down  daily  all  these 
things  for  a  horse  or  a  dog,  it  ought  to  be  pos- 
sible to  get  a  parent  to  write  down  every  day 
what  is  of  highest  interest  in  the  life  of  a  child. 
Keeping  a  record  develops  habits  of  obser- 
vation in  the  parent  which  will  become  more 
valuable  the  more  they  are  exercised.  These 
habits  will  appear  in  other  things  besides  the 
child  training,  and  will  influence,  and  often 
revolutionize,  the  household  life.  "You  see 
that  young  woman  over  there,"  said  an  attrac- 
tive young  mother  to  me  some  time  ago.  "I 
grew  up  with  her,  and  I  don't  think  I  ever 
heard  a  serious  bit  of  conversation  from  her  in 


20  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

my  life,  until  she  began  to  take  up  the  inten- 
sive training  of  her  baby.  From  a  mere  but- 
terfly, she  has  become  one  of  the  superior  wom- 
en of  this  town."  That  was  interesting 
enough,  but  by  and  by,  I  drifted  around  to  the 
"transformed  butterfly"  in  question,  and  in  a 
confidential  moment  she  turned  to  me  and  said, 
pointing  out  the  recent  commentator  upon  her 
own  habits,  "You  see  that  young  woman  over 
there?  I  grew  up  with  her.  She  never  had 
any  serious  aims  in  life,  but  since  she  took  up 
the  careful  training  of  her  little  boy,  she  has 
been  made  over."  Comment  is  needless. 
Here  were  two  people  who  recognized  the 
transformation  in  others,  but  were  not  con- 
scious of  their  o^vn.  The  interesting  thing  to 
me  was  that  they  wxre  developing  remarkable 
powers  in  connection  with  the  training  of  their 
babies.  I  had  laid  down  certain  rules  for 
them,  a  year  or  two  before,  and  they  had  been 
faithfully  following  them.  They  got  quite  as 
much  out  of  it  as  their  chilcben! 

It  is  important  to  write  all  these  things 
down,  because  that  fixes  them  in  a  form  which 
can  readily  be  consulted.  It  makes  the  work 
of  comparison  very  much  easier.  In  fact, 
trusting  to  memory  in  these  matters  is  entirely 
futile.     Most  men  do  not  even  know  with  ex- 


SOME  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES       21 

actness  the  ages  of  their  children,  and  have  to 
think  about  their  birthdays  and  the  hke.  It  is 
even  less  probable  that  they  could  recall  other 
things  in  connection  with  their  mental  develop- 
ment. Such  a  record,  kept  over  a  period  of 
two  years,  will  yield  invaluable  material  for  ex- 
tending the  area  of  knowledge  both  about  the 
parent  and  the  child.  Much  of  the  so-called 
"advanced  work"  in  universities  is,  in  fact, 
nothing  more  than  this,  except  that  the  ob- 
server is  a  trained  observer.  The  difference  be- 
tween a  good  physician  and  a  poor  one  usually 
follows  this  line  of  their  training,  other  things 
being  equal.  Leave  nothing  to  accident  or 
chance.  Don't  trust  that  the  interesting  char- 
acter of  any  occurrence  will  bring  back  the  cir- 
cumstances surrounding  it.  Write,  and  write 
often,  and  fully,  and  write  everything  you  can 
think  of  about  the  subject  matter.  Some  of  it 
may  be  worthless,  of  course.  But  much  of  it 
will  be  valuable  and  you  will  soon  distinguish 
between  what  is  worth  recording  and  what  has 
no  value.  But  in  any  case  write!  There  are 
also  many  incidental  benefits  from  this 
process.  Your  own  memory  will  be  strength- 
ened by  it,  and  you  will  find  your  own  growth 
in  clear  and  cogent  expression  showing  itself. 
All  this  will  reflect  itself  in  your  dealings  with 


gS  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

the  cliild.  You  will  learn  to  be  precise,  clear 
and  brief.  Words  will  mean  more  to  you,  be- 
cause you  will  choose  them  more  carefully. 

Ill 

Discipline  and  interest  come  next  in  the  mat- 
ter of  subjects  of  fundamental  importance. 
The  subject  of  discipline  is  a  very  large  one  and 
it  is  not  the  intention  to  take  it  up  fully  here. 
But  one  general  rule  may  be  laid  down  which 
should  be  very  deeply  considered.  Conflict 
which  leads  to  or  requires  physical  correction 
should  be  avoided  if  it  possibly  can.  But  if  the 
question  of  ultimate  authority  is  raised,  there  is 
but  one  thing  to  do,  and  that  is,  to  put  it 
plainly,  tcin.  But  the  main  use  of  the  superior 
mental  power  of  the  parent  teacher  is  to  pre- 
vent such  a  conflict  from  arising.  This  does 
not  mean  cajolery  or  coaxing  or  bribing  or  any 
other  expedient  that  is  really  nothing  more  or 
less  than  yielding  to  the  child,  but  the  careful 
foreseeing  of  such  possible  troubles  and  pre- 
ventnig  them  from  coming  to  a  head,  by  creat- 
ing interest  in  the  subject  in  hand,  or  changing 
the  subject,  or  avoiding  the  final  issue.  But 
keep  in  mind  that  this  does  not  mean  that  au- 
thority is  to  be  sacrificed  or  steady  pressure 
relaxed!  In  Germany,  the  pressure  is  too 
strong,  in  America  it  is  too  lax.     Here  we  have 


SOME  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES       23 

yielded  so  much  to  children  that  we  have  sub- 
stantially lost  all  real  authority  and  control  in 
many  cases.  This  is  the  source  of  so  much 
juvenile  delinquency.  The  Commissioner  of 
Police  in  Boston,  to  meet  these  cases  when  they 
come  to  police  attention,  has  proposed  the  per- 
fectly sensible  remedy  that  instead  of  arresting 
and  punishing  children  for  breaking  windows, 
destroying  property  and  the  like,  that  the 
parents  should  be  arrested  and  fined !  That  he 
thinks  will  settle  the  matter.  This  is  my  own 
opinion  and  gives  the  point  to  what  has  just 
been  said.  But  in  the  case  of  little  children, 
the  first  great  instrument  of  power  is  the  rec- 
ognition of  obedience.  Here,  again,  there  is 
no  disposition  to  destroy  the  child's  personality, 
or  prevent  its  full  and  free  development. 
Quite  the  contrary.  Nobody  will  ever  know 
what  freedom  is  who  has  not  been  taught  abso- 
lute obedience.  But  this  kind  of  obedience, 
that  it  may  not  become  something  worse,  is  not 
to  be  secured  by  brute  force,  though  it  may  re- 
quire severe  physical  discipline  at  some  point 
along  the  line.  My  own  opinion  is  that  most 
healthy  children  need  a  thorough  spanking 
occasionally  to  remind  them  that  there  is  a 
higher  power  than  individual  inclination  or 
caprice.  But  be  that  as  it  may,  the  important 
thing  is  to  keep   the   authority  unimpaired. 


S4  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

Discipline  is  itself  a  part  of  teaching.  Pa- 
tience, self-control  and  especially  the  use  of 
superior  knowledge,  and  the  understanding  of 
the  child  better  than  it  understands  itself,  will 
usually  supply  the  means  and  the  method  by 
which  the  ultimate  appeal  may  be  avoided.  It 
should  be  avoided  at  all  hazards  if  it  can  be. 
The  best  way  to  set  about  this  is  good  humor 
and  especially  the  use  of  other  interests.  The 
natural  curiosity  of  any  child  is  readily  excited, 
and  when  the  tension  grows  hard,  then  the  test 
of  devotion  and  skill  comes  for  the  teacher. 
Then  is  the  time  to  bring  up  your  reserves. 
Bring  out  the  interesting  things  you  know, 
weave  your  own  experiences  into  the  subject, 
call  to  your  aid  something  that  demands  action 
on  the  part  of  the  child,  give  it  something  to  do 
with  its  hands,  and  deflect  the  course  of  things 
away  from  what  is  making  the  tension.  That 
is  what  a  superior  mind  is  for  chiefly  in  this 
world,  an^^vay.  Only  the  weakest  and  least 
disciplined  minds  are  always  facing  eventuali- 
ties. Larger  minds  know  that  there  is  noth- 
ing really  final  in  this  world,  and  keep  the  ques- 
tion open.  Time  settles  many  things  and  in 
the  matter  of  the  relation  of  the  teaching 
parent  to  the  child,  many  things  must  be  taken 
into  account.  Often  seeming  resistance 
merelv  means  that  the  diet  is  bad  or  that  some 


SOME  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES       25 

other  untoward  circumstance  is  upsetting 
things.  But  even  at  such  times  be  very  care- 
ful that  your  authority  is  not  being  lost.  INIost 
children  take  from  their  parents  severe  disci- 
pline, with  the  feeling  that  the  very  relation 
makes  it  probably  right.  The  natural  love  be- 
tween the  parent  and  child  makes  it  possible 
for  the  parent  to  do  what  nobody  else  in  the 
world  can  do.  Decisive  measures  leave  least 
pain.  Don't  spin  out  punishment.  In  fact, 
don't  spin  out  anything.  Sharp,  short  and  de- 
cisive is  a  good  rule  here  as  in  other  matters. 
But  in  the  main  the  principle  is  that  the  greater 
knowledge  of  life,  the  greater  knowledge  of  the 
child  itself  which  is  possessed  by  the  parent, 
should  so  shape  up  the  relations  that  the  con- 
flict is  avoided  in  any  acute  way. 

This  result  can  generally  be  attained  best  by 
holding  in  reserve  the  things  known  to  be  spe- 
cially interesting  to  the  child.  When  a  matter 
begins  to  go  hard,  especially  with  a  little  child, 
it  may  be  a  sign  of  weariness  and  there  should 
be  no  heavy  pressure  in  that  case.  If  it  is 
merely  wandering  in  mind,  showing  that  the 
subject  has  lost  interest  and  something  else  is 
appealing  and  creating  resistance,  then  the  case 
becomes  one  where  it  is  a  question  whether  the 
parent  can  interest  the  child  more  than  it  can 
interest  itself.     Of  course  the  main  object  in 


£6  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

teaching  at  all  is  to  interest  the  child  in  what 
you  want  him  to  know  and  do.  That  is  your 
problem.  If  he  can  get  more  interest  in  some- 
thing he  himself  devises  or  while  you  are  talk- 
ing, forget  you  and  your  matters  to  watch  or 
attend  to  something  else,  it  is  still  your  prob- 
lem, because  you  ought  to  be  able  to  think 
more  quickly  than  he  and  keep  a  considerable 
distance  ahead  of  him.  Every  teacher  in 
school  knows  this.  But  you  have  a  better  op- 
portunity than  the  school  teacher,  because  you 
are  at  home  and  have  one,  and  she  has  little  or 
no  authority  over  her  pupils,  and  has  forty! 

2Vien,  study  up  interesting  things.  This 
means  fertilizing  your  own  mind  and  storing  up 
interesting  things.  You  are  reading  a  news- 
paper and  read  something  that  you  thought  of 
interest.  Clip  it  and  put  it  by.  Have  it  at 
hand  for  any  emergency.  The  European  War, 
the  Italian  earthquake,  the  innumerable  stories 
of  the  habits,  manners,  customs,  dress  of  the 
many  lands  now  in  turmoil,  or  hereafter  trying 
to  get  settled  again,  will  all  furnish  abundant 
material.  Our  o\\ii  land  has  thousands  of 
"thrillers"  in  its  history  and  development. 
Learn  some  of  them  if  you  don't  know  them, 
but  in  any  case  have  them  at  hand.  A  young 
assistant    in    Radcliffe    College    recently   an- 


SOME  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES       27 

nounced  to  the  freshman  class  that  the  instruc- 
tor "felt  no  obhgation  to  make  the  course  inter- 
esting." No  mature  person  needs  to  be  told 
that  he  is  very  young  and  that  everybody  is 
fmding  that  course  extremely  stupid  and  will 
be  glad  when  it  is  over!  But  whether  a  course 
in  college  should  be  interesting  or  not  there  is 
no  doubt  that  with  the  balance  so  vastly  in  your 
favor  there  is  no  excuse  if  you  do  not  make 
your  instruction  interesting  to  your  little  child. 
You  have  many  years  the  start  and  with  your 
superiority  in  mind  and  maturity,  there  is  not  a 
shred  of  reason  why  you  should  have  any  diffi- 
culty, provided  always  there  is  the  will  to  do  the 
work.  There  is  nothing  that  so  instantly  com- 
mands a  child's  attention  as  when  the  father 
begins,  "When  I  was  a  boy,"  because  this  is 
personal,  concrete  and  has  all  the  elements  of 
interest  ready  made.  What  would  you  not 
give  if  somebody  had  made  such  a  record  as  I 
have  suggested  about  you?  Children  love 
these  things  and  the  personal  element  is  the 
most  attractive  to  them.  If  they  relate  to 
books,  travel,  to  observations  and  other  ma- 
terials of  knowledge,  they  can  all  be  used  to 
interest  the  child,  not  only  for  the  knowledge, 
but  even  more  for  maintaining,  without  weari- 
ness, a  steady  pressure  which  is  making  slowly 


S8  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

but  surely  the  one  instrument  by  which  the 
whole  problem  will  presently  swing  along  by 
itself  almost.     That  instrument  is  habit. 

IV 

"Habit"  says  Professor  James,  "is  the  enor- 
mous flywheel  of  society,  its  most  precious  con- 
servative agent.  It  alone  is  what  keeps  us 
within  the  bounds  of  ordinance,  and  saves  the 
children  of  fortune  from  the  envious  uprisings 
of  the  poor.  It  alone  prevents  the  hardest  and 
most  repulsive  walks  of  life  from  being  de- 
serted by  those  brought  up  to  tread  therein."  ^ 
If  you  have  not  already  his  little  book  on  this 
subject  get  it  and  ponder  it  well.  Professor 
James  told  me  that  many  thousands  of  letters 
had  come  to  him,  of  appreciation  for  tliis  chap- 
ter from  his  "Psycholog}\"  Every  parent 
will  be  benefited  by  reading  it.  Now,  the  main 
importance  of  habit  for  the  purpose  which  we 
are  discussing,  is  that  whatever  becomes  ha- 
bitual releases  the  attention  for  new  things. 
This  is  why  you  don't  have  to  think  about  num- 
berless things  about  dressing  or  eating  or  going 
about  your  daily  tasks.  They  have  become 
matters  of  habit  and  you  do  them  without  hav- 
ing to  think  about  them.  But  there  was  a 
time  when  you  did  not  walk  to  j'our  dress- 

1  Psychology.    William  James,  Vol.  I,  p.  121. 


SOME  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES       29 

ing  table  in  the  dark,  as  you  do  now  un- 
erringly! There  was  a  time  when  you  did 
not  know  exactly  how  your  hat  was  go- 
ing to  look  when  set  on  at  a  certain  angle, 
or  in  a  certain  way!  Frequency  in  doing 
it  has  made  it  possible  for  you  to  do  it  at  the 
theatre,  without  a  glass  and  to  do  it  exactly 
right,  too !  The  same  rule  applies  to  the  mind. 
The  habit  of  expecting  to  do  certain  things,  at 
a  certain  time,  to  submit  to  instruction  and  to 
make  certain  efforts,  begins  very  earlj^  in  life. 
Much  earlier  than  most  persons  yet  believe! 
The  value  of  habit  lies,  for  this  purpose,  that  it 
releases  the  mind  for  attention  to  other  things, 
saves  time  and  strength  and  friction  and  a 
great  variety  of  other  things.  I  need  not  say 
how  important  it  is  in  the  matter  of  behavior 
and  conduct.  Therefore  make  the  habits  of 
the  child  its  friends,  not  its  enemies,  as  I  sup- 
pose you  have  made  your  own  habits  your 
friends  and  not  your  enemies ! 

You  have  doubtless  observed  the  close  resem- 
blance in  manners,  often,  between  some  parents 
and  their  children.  The  imitative  faculties  of 
little  children  are  very  strong.  Give  them 
something  worth  imitating  and  make  that  de- 
sire to  imitate  a  habit.  This  done  in  the  mat- 
ter of  speech,  for  example,  is  all  the  difference 
between  clean,  careful  and  precise  utterance 


ao  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

and  slovenly,  clumsy  and  unattractive  vocaliza- 
tion. And  here  I  venture  a  suggestion  that 
nothing  will  so  make  for  the  kind  of  mental 
habits,  and  aid  gaining  the  knowledge  and  the 
development  of  intelligence  which  we  want,  as 
the  systematic  effort  to  win  the  admiration  of 
the  child  not  only  for  the  matter,  but  the  man- 
ner of  your  instruction.  Though  it  may  not 
know  the  reason,  the  child  knows  when  a  mat- 
ter comes  with  all  the  force  and  skill  of  the  per- 
sonality behind  it.  You  yourself  know  it,  and 
cannot  help  conveying  that  knowledge  if  you 
have  made  special  preparation  for  the  event. 
Was  any  woman  ever  well-dressed  without  be- 
ing conscious  of  it?  Did  she  ever  have  to  ap- 
pear not  at  her  best  without  being  conscious 
of  that?  And  did  she  not  know  that  every 
other  woman  present  knew  exactly  how  she 
felt?  Was  there  not  a  deft  and  penetrating 
truth  in  the  witty  saying  of  the  Cambridge 
woman  who  said  that  there  was  "a  conscious- 
ness of  repose  in  the  knowledge  of  being  well- 
dressed  which  even  religion  could  not  bestow"? 
I  have  often  seen  children  stand  off  in  a  corner 
and  admire  their  parents  in  a  detached  kind  of 
a  way  which  was  very  suggestive.  But  con- 
versely, I  have  also  seen  children  cringe  and 
blush  for  their  parents,  which  was  also  very 
suggestive !   Be  very  sure  that  the  contrasts  he- 


SOME  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES       31 

tween  yourself  and  some  other  jmrent  are  not 
lost  upon  your  children.  Therefore  be  worthy 
of  their  admiration,  even  though  they  may  not 
know  upon  what  it  is  based.  The  emotions 
have  an  office  here,  which  is  not  very  clearly 
understood  yet,  I  think.  We  all  like  to  see 
those  we  love  appear  well  and  are  grieved  if 
they  do  not.  A  normal  child  has  much  this 
same  feeling  about  its  home,  its  parents  and 
everything  pertaining  to  both.  Now  if  the 
child  sees  your  own  mind  working  smoothly 
and  beautifully,  if  it  sees  you  pouring  out  of  a 
full  mind  interesting  things  and  showing  how 
much  you  have  profited  by  being  in  the  world, 
the  very  first  sensation  is,  "I'd  like  to  be  like 
that,"  and  your  office  is  to  take  that  desire,  ele- 
mentary though  it  be,  and  organize  it  into  a 
purpose  of  the  will,  and  hold  it  down  long 
enough  to  become  a  habit. 

This  leads  me  to  speak  of  the  thousands  of 
letters  I  received  after  the  publication  of  "The 
School  in  the  Home,"  in  which  parents  urged 
me  to  w^rite  this  little  book  and  pleaded  their 
own  incompetence  for  the  task.  They  all 
wanted  some  fixed  rule  to  follow.  They 
all  craved  a  guide.  This  very  fact  made  me 
hesitate  about  writing  one  for  the  reason  that 
many  such  persons  now  having  this  one  will 
simply  do  what  it  says  instead  of  doing  the 


8i  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

more  important  thing  of  fertilizing  their  own 
minds  and  heing  themselves  the  greatest  in- 
centive to  their  children  to  become  what  they 
wish  them  to  become.  But  that  will  be  a  great 
mistake.  The  greatest  single  influence  is 
going  to  be  yourself,  your  patience,  your  indus- 
try, your  habits,  and  your  attractiveness. 
Most  people,  even  parents,  think  they  can  let 
down  in  these  things  in  the  presence  of  chil- 
dren. If  you  must  let  down,  choose  any  other 
society,  because  older  peoj)le  can  make  excuses 
and  qualifications  which  children  cannot  and 
should  not.  Give  your  best  and  grow  from 
that  onward.  You  will  find  the  world  taking 
on  new  interest  to  you,  because  you  will  be  see- 
ing it  all  over  again  with  the  child's  eyes. 
But  all  this  must  be  reduced  to  system.  You 
cannot  keep  on  furnishing  beauty  pictures  of 
animated,  w^ell-informed  mentality  forever. 
There  is  a  limit  for  even  the  most  capable. 
But  you  can  do  it  long  enough  to  make  the 
habits  you  want  established  and  then  you  may 
do  something  else.  Very  probably,  by  that 
time,  you  will  have  become  so  habituated  to  the 
practise  yourself  that  you  cannot  stop  and  will 
go  on  for  the  rest  of  your  life  adding  to  your 
knowledge,  and  filling  your  mind,  and  so  will 
insure  for  yourself  what  you  never  dreamed  of 
when  you  started,  a  beautiful  happy  old  age 


SOME  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES       33 

with  a  well-stored  mind,  acquired  and  devel- 
oped under  the  happiest  conditions  possible. 

"A  new  cask,"  says  the  poet  Horace,  "will 
long  preserve  the  tincture  of  the  liquor  with 
which  it  is  first  impregnated."  A  young  mind, 
similarly,  will  get  its  first  notions  of  mental 
habit  from  the  mind  which  it  sees  oftenest  at 
work.  That  is  the  reason  why  the  parent 
should  be  the  fu-st  teacher.  The  parent, 
w^hether  father  or  mother,  has  the  largest  num- 
ber of  reasons,  to  say  nothing  whatever  of  the 
affections,  for  impregnating  the  young  mind 
with  the  tinctures  which  are  to  give  taste  to  its 
subsequent  life.  And  let  no  such  person  be 
discouraged  by  want  of  what  is  called  "equip- 
ment." If  half  the  pedagogy  were  thrown  into 
Boston  harbor,  nobody  would  be  the  worse  for 
it  and  many  thousands  of  persons  would  be 
better  off.  I  have  nothing  whatever  to  say 
against  pedagogy,  but  I  insist  that,  like  all  the 
sciences,  if  it  is  a  science,  and  like  all  the  arts, 
if  it  is  an  art,  it  was  made  for  man  and  not  man 
for  it.  Most  of  the  early  years  of  life  are  ex- 
perimentation by  the  child,  by  the  parent,  and 
by  everybody  else,  that  has  anything  to  do  with 
it.  All  that  I  am  urging  is  that  your  experi- 
ments shall  be  educational  experiments  and 
that  you  shall  bring  your  maturity  and  your 
experience  and  your  failures  as  resources  for 


84  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

this  little  one.  The  m{3ral  elements  of  this 
matter  1  shall  diseuss  a  little  later  on  in  the 
chapter  on  ethies.  But  for  the  present  may  I 
say  that,  in  the  last  analysis,  this  matter  turns 
on  the  moral  quality  of  the  parent,  of  ability  to 
subject  himself  or  herself  to  the  self-imposed 
duties  of  child  training.  How  much  it  shall  be 
may  depend  upon  circumstances ;  of  what  qual- 
ity it  shall  be  does  not.  Whether  you  have 
many  or  few  accessories  to  your  work,  likewise, 
may  depend  upon  your  station  or  wealth.  But 
whether  you  shall  bring  to  this  work  fidelity 
and  devotion,  and  prepare  yourself  for  it  with 
diligence,  depends  only  on  yourself.  But  even 
the  accessories  are  easily  obtainable.  Books 
are  numerous  and  not  costly.  The  average 
household  will  supply  most  of  the  materials 
for  the  handicraft  and  there  is  no  need  for  ex- 
pensive materials  from  elsewhere.  As  I  have 
advised  you  not  to  underestimate  the  powers 
and  capabilities  of  the  child,  so  I  now  advise 
you  not  to  underestimate  your  own.  Conse- 
crated parenthood  brings  with  it  a  kind  of  ped- 
agogy of  its  own.  Think  what  the  mothers  of 
the  pioneers  did  and  what  they  had  to  find  out, 
without  our  costly  and  innumerable  accessories 
of  to-day!  And  think  what  men  and  women 
they  reared!  Of  course  their  method  will  not 
do  to-day,  but  their  spirit  will  do  in  any  home 


SOME  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES       35 

what  they  did  in  the  wilderness!  There  is 
hardly  a  community  that  has  not  a  library,  how- 
ever small.  Good  books  and  great  books  are 
within  the  reach  of  almost  every  one.  Read 
them,  study  them  and  make  their  contents  your 
own  for  your  sake  and  the  child's.  Nobody 
can  do  it  so  well  as  you.  And  after  all,  what- 
ever you  get  from  other  sources  must  be  assim- 
ilated by  you  and  made  your  own,  just  as  what 
you  bring  to  the  child  must  be  made  its  own, 
not  by  being  pushed  in  by  force,  but  planted  to 
grow  in  its  own  natural  way.  I  can  close  this 
chapter  with  nothing  better  than  by  the  follow- 
ing quotation  from  the  great  Pestalozzi: 

"In  the  new-born  child  are  hidden  those  fac- 
ulties which  are  to  unfold  during  life.  The  in- 
dividual and  separate  organs  of  his  being  form 
themselves  gradually  into  unison,  and  build  up 
humanity  in  the  image  of  God.  The  education 
of  man  is  a  purely  moral  result.  It  is  not  the 
educator  who  puts  new  powers  and  faculties 
into  man  and  imparts  to  him  breath  and  life. 
He  only  takes  care  that  no  untoward  influence 
shall  disturb  nature's  march  of  develo2:)ment. 
The  moral,  intellectual  and  practical  powers  of 
man  must  be  nurtured  within  himself  and  not 
from  artificial  substitutes.  Thus  faith  must 
be  cultivated  by  our  own  act  of  believing,  not 
by  reasoning  about  faith ;  love,  by  our  own  act 


36  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

of  loving,  not  by  fine  words  about  love; 
thouglit,  by  our  own  act  of  thinking,  not  by 
merely  appropriating  the  thoughts  of  other 
men;  and  knowledge  by  our  own  investigation, 
not  by  endless  talk  about  the  results  of  art  and 
science." 

Thus  it  may  be  seen  that  the  training  of  the 
child  is  not  a  process  but  a  growth,  and  the  rela- 
tion of  the  parent  to  the  child,  being  an  organic, 
not  an  artificial  relation,  affords  the  natural 
means  for  the  symmetrical  growth  of  the  stem 
from  the  parent  tree.  What  the  branch  shall 
be  depends  wholly  upon  the  nature  and  nurture 
which  it  receives  from  the  source  from  which  it 
sprang. 


CHAPTER  II 

ENGLISH!  ENGLISH!  ENGLISH! 

"It  is  instructive,"  says  a  footnote  in  a  very 
useful  and  inspiring  book/  "to  study  one's 
own  vocabulary,  making  a  list  of  (1)  those 
words  which  we  feel  sure  we  learned  in  child- 
hood, (2)  those  which  we  have  learned  in  later 
life  but  not  from  books,  (3)  those  which  have 
entered  our  vocabulary  from  books.  We  shall 
also  find  it  useful  to  consider  the  difference  be- 
tween our  reading  vocabulary  and  our  speak- 
ing vacabulary."  Here  we  have  several  very 
important  things  indicated,  which  the  parent 
teacher  will  do  well  to  observe  at  the  outset  of 
the  task.  This  classification  is  suggestive  be- 
cause it  indicates  how  we  shall  secure  the  great- 
est measure  of  progress  for  the  child  and  we 
can  readily  see  the  process  by  comparing  our 
own  experience.  That  there  is  a  decided  dif- 
ference between  the  speaking  and  the  read- 
ing vocabulary  will  be  readily  perceived  by 
everybody.  But  why  should  that  be,  un- 
less it  is  that  the  tilings  we  read  about  we  do 

1  Words  and  Thrir  Ways  in  English  Speech,  Greenough 
and  Kittredge,  p.  21. 

37 

215120 


38  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

not  talk  about?  Wlien  a  law^^r  is  speaking  in 
a  court  room  his  speaking  vocabulary  is  the 
vocabulary  of  the  text-books  or  the  law  reports 
wliich  he  reads;  both  vocabularies  are  the  same. 
When  a  doctor  is  writing  a  medical  report  or 
addressing  a  medical  society,  his  speaking  vo- 
cabulary and  his  reading  vocabulary  coalesce 
in  exactly  the  same  way.  What  makes  the 
great  chasm  which  most  people  feel  to  exist 
between  the  words  they  use  when  they  talk 
and  the  words  they  use  when  they  read? 
Simply  that  they  do  not  talk  about  the  things 
they  read  or  they  do  not  read  about  the  things 
they  talk  about  or  the  latter  are  not  written 
about  and  have  no  reading  equivalent.  Xow 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  just  here  that  the  busi- 
ness of  the  parent  teacher  begins.  The  reason 
why  it  begins  here  is  that  the  distance  between 
the  reading  vocabulary  and  the  speaking  vo- 
cabulary is  usually  the  distance  that  has  to  be 
travelled  before  knowledge  becomes  organized 
and  ceases  to  be  mere  miscellaneous  informa- 
tion, having  no  relation  or  significance  with 
reference  to  anything  else. 

I  have  already  discussed  the  matter  of  lan- 
guage ^  as  such,  but  I  am  now  dealing  with 
English  as  the  special  instrument  of  intensive 
training.     It  is  probable  that  few  people  asso- 

1  School  in  the  Home.  Chapter  I. 


ENGLISH!  ENGLISH!  ENGLISH!  39 

ciate  the  vocabulary  of  their  maturity  with  their 
childliood  unless  as,  in  some  cases  to  which  I 
have  referred,  the  professional  pursuits  of  the 
father,  for  instance,  were  such  as  afforded  pe- 
culiar opportunity  to  the  child  to  master  a 
special  or  technical  group  of  words.  But 
many  more  people  do  not  associate  their  read- 
ing vocabulary  with  their  childhood.  And  yet 
why  should  this  be  the  case?  What  is  there 
about  pure  and  clear  English  that  it  should  not 
be  spoken  by  children?  What  is  there  about 
the  vast  majority  of  even  so-called  "learned" 
words  that  children  should  not  know  them  and 
understand  them?  Nothing  except  that  they 
are  withheld  from  the  child!  But  that  with- 
holding is  a  costly  process  for  the  child,  because 
organized  knowledge,  by  which  I  mean  the 
knowledge  that  is  prepared  for  transmission  in 
text-books  and  the  like,  is  for  the  most  part  in 
this  reading  vocabulary.  The  longer  the  child 
is  kept  a  stranger  to  it,  the  harder  it  will  be  to 
acquire  in  the  end  and  the  greater  the  time  lost. 
Therefore  the  beginning  of  English  training  in 
the  home  should  start  with  the  deliberate  choice 
of  the  learned  or  reading  word,  well  knowing 
that  speech  in  general  will  supply  the  popular 
word  when  it  is  needed.  This  whole  subject  is 
very  fully  discussed  in  the  volume  referred  to, 
which  I  advise  every  parent  to  read.     For  ex- 


40  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

ample  take  the  clioice  involved  between  words 
like  the  following  conflagration  and  fire,  select. 
and  choose,  building  and  edifice,  annihilate  and 
destroy,  stiff  and  rigid,  try  and  endeavor,  piece 
and  fragment,  teacher  and  instructor,  air  and 
atmosphere,  and  many  others  which  are  given. 
Now  in  comparing  these  synonyms  nobody  will 
be  at  a  loss  to  select  the  words  which  are  "pop- 
ular" and  those  which  are  "learned,"  if  we  may 
say  so.  The  ordinary  child  will  be  very  sure 
to  come  in  contact  with  the  popular  ones,  but 
when  he  reads  he  will  as  surely  strike  the 
learned  ones.  There  is  nothing  about  the 
learned  ones  which  is  difficult  of  understanding 
and  the  child  that  masters  them  first  will  have  a 
great  advantage  over  the  child  that  comes  to 
them  later. 

Now  it  must  be  reasonably  clear  that  if 
books  are  to  be  used  in  the  later  education,  the 
first  thing  to  do  is  to  get  the  ability  to  read 
them.  Therefore  the  child  trainer  will  see  to  it 
that  wherever  a  choice  is  possible,  the  choice 
will  fall  upon  the  word  which  will  be  used  in 
books,  rather  than  in  colloquial  assemblies.  I 
think  I  have  said  elsewhere  that  half  the  chil- 
dren in  our  high  schools  cannot  read  their  text- 
books, and  this  is  undoubtedly  true.  Through 
our  entire  grade  system  we  stick  to  the  col- 
loquial habit  when  we  should  be  making  the 


ENGLISH!  ENGLISH!  ENGLISH!  41 

book  habit.  But  it  should  be  made  even  before 
that,  namely  in  the  home.  At  first  sight,  this 
seems  like  making  the  home  conversation  stiff, 
and  void  of  the  vivacity  which  is  said  to  be  the 
chief  charm  of  non-bookish  talk.  But  my  ob- 
servation and  experience  lead  me  to  think  that 
exactly  the  reverse  is  true.  No  conversation  is 
so  bright,  so  sparkling,  or  so  enjoyable,  as  that 
which  uses  words  with  precision  and  enables 
the  thought  to  play  swiftly  and  with  discrimi- 
nation upon  the  fine  shades  of  meaning. 
Nothing  enables  one  to  use  quotations  with 
such  telling  effect.  Nothing  moves  the  mind 
to  greater  expertness  or  appreciation.  One 
reason  why  an  older  generation  had  so  much 
purer  speech  than  ours  seems  to  have  was  be- 
cause the  fine  old  habit  of  reading  aloud  pre- 
vailed then,  which  introduced  the  reading  vo- 
cabulary into  the  area  of  common  conversation. 
Children  heard  their  elders  use  not  only  pure 
speech  but  the  dialect  of  knowledge.  They 
gained  from  hearing  poetrj'^  and  fiction  and  ser- 
mons and  classic  literature,  read  at  the  family 
fireside,  a  great  instrument  of  comparison 
which  was  a  thought-builder,  second  to  noth- 
ing. 

Obviously  then  intensive  training  must  think 
first  and  foremost  and  all  tlie  time  of  English, 
and  that  not  merely  the  pure  English  of  pop- 


4S  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

ular  speech  but  the  English  of  books.  Yes, 
books,  but  what  books?  Certainly  not  the 
"best  sellers"  and  the  cheap  fiction,  but  the 
English  of  the  classical  English  authors,  of  the 
statesmen  and  publicists,  of  the  scientists  and 
the  discoverers,  of  the  public  speakers  of  repute 
and  the  like.  Wlio  these  are  does  not  need 
much  exposition  here.  How  shall  this  process 
begin  ? 


It  is  one  of  the  happiest  accidents  for  the 
English  speaking  nations  that  their  greatest 
classic  is  also  a  book  that  has  had  the  widest 
daily  and  almost  hourly  use.  "We  Ameri- 
cans," says  Professor  Barrett  Wendell,  "are 
English  speaking  and  English  speaking  we 
must  always  remain.  An  accident  of  language 
and  nothing  more,  this  fact  may  seem  to  many. 
To  those  who  think  more  deeply  it  can  hardly 
fail  to  mean  that  for  better  or  worse  the  ideals 
which  underlie  our  blundering  conscious  life 
must  always  be  the  ideals  which  underlie  the 
conscious  life  of  the  mother  country  and  which 
for  centuries  have  rectified  and  purified  her 
blunders.  Morally  and  religiously  these  ideals 
are  immortally  consecrated  in  King  James's 
version  of  the  Bible."  ^     Nor  is  this  all.     "As 

ij   Literary  History  of  America.    Barrett  Wendell,  p.  8. 


ENGLISH!  ENGLISH!  ENGLISH!  43 

English  literature  has  grown  to  maturity  the 
working  of  this  law  (the  law  of  creative  im- 
pulse) throughout  its  course  has  become  evi- 
dent. The  first  impulse,  we  have  seen,  gave  us 
the  work  of  Chaucer;  the  second,  which  came 
only  after  generations,  gave  us  the  Elizabethan 
lyrics  and  dramas,  Spencer  and  Shakspere  and 
the  final  form  of  the  Enghsh  Bible.  This  last 
is  probably  the  greatest  masterpiece  of  transla- 
tion in  the  world;  it  has  exercised  on  the 
thought  and  language  of  English  speaking 
people  an  influence  which  cannot  be  over- 
estimated." ^ 

Here  is  the  beginning  point,  therefore,  for 
the  mastery  of  English.  What  has  been  true 
of  the  influence  of  the  Bible  over  English 
speaking  people  as  a  whole,  is  even  more  true 
of  the  individuals  who  have  steeped  themselves 
in  its  thought  and  language  and  have  therefore 
become  masters  of  its  superb  diction  and  shared 
in  the  endeavor  of  the  translators  to  dip  into 
the  literatures  of  the  whole  world  and  incor- 
porate into  it  the  best  that  they  could  gather, 
for  this  is  exactly  what  the  impulse  that  gave 
us  the  English  Bible  did.  It  is  therefore  the 
best  and  will  remain  for  generations  the  best 
text-book  of  English  that  can  be  found.  That 
it  is  so  linked  with  the  literary  as  well  as  the 

ilbid.,  p.  5. 


44  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

moral  and  spiritual  ideals  of  the  English  speak- 
ing race  not  only  doubles  its  value  as  a  text- 
book but  gives  it  an  inestimable  creative  power. 
Now  before  books  became  as  numerous  and 
as  cheap  as  they  now  are,  the  only  way  families 
could  share  a  book  was  by  hearing  it  read  aloud 
just  as  to-day  in  the  trenches  a  single  soldier 
will  read  to  his  companions  the  newspaper  that 
comes  rarely  to  them  at  the  front.  No  one 
who  has  not  camped  out  in  the  woods  and  lis- 
tened to  a  good  reader  bringing  the  message  of 
some  classic,  as  the  listeners  sat  around  the 
campfire,  will  ever  know  the  wonders  that  are 
embodied  in  reading  aloud,  unless  it  is  they 
who  have  had  the  same  experience  at  home,  sit- 
ting at  the  knee  of  father  or  mother  and  had  a 
similar  sense  of  pleasure  and  satisfaction. 
The  intensive  training  in  English  for  which  I 
am  now  jileading  begins  with  reading  aloud  by 
the  parent  teacher,  first  and  foremost,  the  Bible 
and  always  the  Bible.  And  I  mean  of  course 
the  King  James  version,  which  is  the  one  not 
only  best  known  but  the  one  which  is  embalmed 
in  and  irrevocabl}^  linked  with  the  greatest 
epoch  of  English  literature  and  which  lives  in 
every  English  masterpiece  of  any  kind  in  exist- 
ence. Begin  then  by  reading  the  Bible  out  loud. 
Take  the  parts  which  you  know  best  and  get 
some  analysis  of  its  contents  which  will  tell  you, 


ENGLISH!  ENGLISH!  ENGLISH!  45 

if  you  do  not  already  know,  what  kind  of 
material  may  be  found  in  its  various  books. 
Here  you  will  find  matter  for  every  mood ;  you 
will  find  poetry  and  prose,  history,  tragedy, 
comedy,  drama  and  allegory,  things  joyful  and 
things  sad,  things  for  inspiration  and  things 
for  instruction,  but  all  of  them  classic  and 
builders  of  thought  and  together  forming  the 
substratum  for  a  full  round  reading  and  classic 
vocabulary.  There  is  no  one  tiling  that  will 
educate  so  much  and  educate  so  variously  and 
educate  so  soundly  a  little  child  as  hearing  daily 
read  the  English  of  the  English  Bible.  I  am 
not  trying  to  direct  your  religion  or  make  your 
theology!  I  am  speaking  now  to  the  parent 
who  wants  to  give  her  child  the  best  training 
for  the  intellectual  life.  I  know  no  way  in 
which  so  many  things  may  be  done  simultane- 
ously for  the  intellectual  development  of  chil- 
dren as  reading  to  them  the  Bible.  Of  course 
the  reader  must  read  well  and  understand- 
ingly ;  she  must  not  blunder  along  not  knowing 
what  is  coming  next  and  wondering  herself 
what  the  words  mean.  But  having  chosen  her 
material,  and  linking  it  consciously  with  what 
she  knows  to  be  the  interests  of  the  child,  she 
has  made  for  her  the  best  instrument  that  could 
possibly  be  devised. 

The  words  wliich  find  a  place  in  books  are 


46  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

usually  those  of  the  class  called  "learned 
words,"  and  the  Bible  is  full  of  these.  These 
same  words  are  generally  of  foreign  origin  and 
the  translators  of  the  King  James  version 
consciously  chose  words  of  classical  significance 
and  for  this  reason  every  other  language  from 
which  the  learned  words  in  the  Bible  come  will 
be  made  easier  by  famiharity  with  its  English 
derivatives.  Hearing  these  words  read  will 
naturalize  them  in  the  ear  and  will  instantly 
create  an  affinity  in  the  mind  of  the  child  be- 
tween the  word  heard  at  the  mother's  knee  and 
the  Latin  or  Greek  stem  from  which  it  comes 
when  it  meets  that  stem  later  on.  This  is,  in 
fact,  the  simplest  gate  to  Latin.  Acquaint- 
ance through  the  English  derivatives  of  a  con- 
siderable number  of  Latin  stems,  will  im- 
mensely simplify  the  study  of  Latin,  and  make 
it  interesting  where  now  it  is  stupid.  But 
this  process  can  be  only  made  interesting  by 
familiarity  with  the  English,  and  this  is  the 
earliest  and  best  way  to  secure  it.  Read 
aloud,  then,  constanth'',  and  enunciate  care- 
fully, using  the  lips  rather  than  the  tlu'oat,  and 
making  the  distinctions  of  sound  clear  and  pre- 
cise. This  reading,  for  little  children,  should 
he  slowly  done,  and  when  explanations  are 
needed,  freely  given.  The  reading  of  some  of 
the  Old  Testament  stories  are  thus  made  the 


ENGLISH!  ENGLISH!  ENGLISH!  47 

medium  for  telling  all  sorts  of  things,  beside 
teaching  English.  They  open  the  way  to  the 
largest  capabihties  of  the  parent.  Personally, 
I  should  leave  out  the  "moral"  teaching  in  the 
reading  hour,  simply  letting  the  story  teach 
its  own  moral.  You  are  thus  freed  from  the 
everlasting  dread  of  the  hour  as  one  of  moral 
exhortation,  which  has  killed  so  much  natural 
interest  in  the  Bible.  The  stories  in  Genesis, 
or  even  the  sensational  stories  in  the  Book  of 
Judges,  may  be  permitted  to  stand  simply  by 
themselves.  Of  course,  they  may  need  a  little 
preliminary  explanation.  Dramatize  while 
reading  aloud,  and  let  the  climax  come  just  as 
you  would  wish  it  to  come  in  a  play.  But  re- 
gard it  as  literature  read  for  that  reason  only. 
The  rest  will  take  care  of  itself. 

It  will  be  most  excellent  practise  in  this 
connection  to  have  the  child  repeat  the  story 
itself  before  taking  up  the  next  one.  Notice 
how  it  will  repeat  it  in  the  words  in  which  it 
was  heard,  and  thus  gain  the  use  of  the  words. 
Try  in  this  manner  the  interesting  stories  in 
the  Book  of  Daniel,  picturesque  and  thrilling 
tales,  which  offer  infinite  pleasure  not  only  in 
reading,  but  in  listening  to,  when  repeated. 
Be  sure  to  make  your  notations  in  your  record 
as  to  what  happens  when  the  child  tells  the 
story  back  to  you.     When  such  a  story  has 


48  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

been  read,  try  to  use  some  of  the  interesting 
words  in  conversation  at  meal  times,  and  see 
if  they  awaken  remembrance,  and  if  they 
arouse  thought.  Here  you  will  have  much  in- 
terest in  noting  what  words  linger,  and  which 
are  forgotten,  and  also  when  mistakes  are 
made,  what  the  nature  of  the  mistakes  is.  Not 
infrequently  you  will  find  the  mistake  due  to 
your  own  intonation,  or  lack  of  clear  enuncia- 
tion, and  that  will  help  you  to  avoid  those 
things  in  the  future.  But  you  will  have  pleas- 
ure in  this  work  possibly  above  anything  else 
that  you  do. 

Next  to  the  Bible  there  are  many  other 
standard  English  classics  which  may  be  read. 
Read  poetry  as  much  as  possible,  especially 
poetry  that  lends  itself  to  rhytlimic  utterance ; 
standard  passages  from  Shakspere  lend  them- 
selves readily  to  this  work.  They  can  readily 
be  memorized  also  both  by  yourself  and  by 
the  child.  Select  for  young  children  passages 
that  are  picturesque,  that  convey  something 
that  can  easily  be  imagined.  Alwaf/s  tell 
its  connection,  if  you  read  an  isolated  pas- 
sage. It  is  good  practice,  both  for  the  parent 
and  the  child,  to  tell  the  plot  or  sub-plot  of  a 
Shakspere  play  as  nearly  as  possible,  by  means 
of  passages  from  the  play  from  which  the 
stor3^  is  dra^vn.     Don't  simplify  but  amplify! 


ENGLISH!  ENGLISH!  ENGLISH!  49 

That  is,  don't  bring  the  thing  down  to  the  puer- 
ilities which  are  commonplace,  but  give  expla- 
nations which  will  move  the  child  to  wish  to  ac- 
quire the  ability  and  dignity  of  doing  the 
things  as  it  actually  is.  You  will  be  surprised 
to  find  out  how  often  this  can  be  accomiJlished 
in  matters  that  at  first  seem  unlikely. 

Repetitio  est  mater  studiorum.  Repeat 
these  things  many  times  by  reading  them  fre- 
quently, for  this  is  the  key  to  the  development 
of  the  memory.  Apart  from  this,  you  w^ill 
acquire  facility  and  comprehension  in  reading 
them,  and  you  will  read  them  better  every 
time,  wuth  more  feeling,  with  more  discrimina- 
tion, and  with  better  expression.  All  this  is 
so  much  clear  gain  for  the  little  listener.  Not 
infrequently  you  will  have  a  demand  for  an 
encore.  Give  it  promptly,  but  never  care- 
lessly, because  that  is  the  best  evidence  you 
could  possibl}^  desire  that  you  are  getting  what 
you  desire.  Often  it  will  be  found  interesting 
and  satisfactory  to  ask  the  child  to  tell  the 
story,  as  it  usually  will,  in  the  terms  in  which 
it  has  been  heard.  Cultivate  this  disposition, 
because  a  good  memory  is  not  a  matter  of  nat- 
ural endowment,  as  many  people  suppose,  but 
a  matter  of  habit  and  practise.  Cultivate  ex- 
act memory.  Do  not  let  yourself  say,  "Well, 
he  has  the  substance  of  it,"  because  the  sub- 


50  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

stance  of  it,  at  this  stage,  won't  do.  What 
you  want  is  exact  memory,  because  exactness 
in  memory  will  be  found  of  very  great  use 
later  on,  in  things  which  depend  almost  solely 
on  exact  memory,  like  the  multiplication  table 
and  mathematics,  generally,  which  have  very 
little  to  do  with  education  as  such.  But  re- 
peat and  repeat  again.  But  let  it  not  be  vain 
repetition,  but  each  time  more  intelligent, 
more  discriminating,  and  more  reflective. 
Often  the  child  itself  will  note  the  changed 
emphasis,  and  ask  the  reason  why.  Be  ready 
to  give  it. 

There  are  many  kinds  of  memory  which  it 
is  worth  while  to  know  something  about. 
There  is  visual  memory,  which  comes  from  see- 
ing things  repeatedly,  and  remembering  how 
they  look.  Many  persons  commit  pages  to 
memory  by  their  appearance,  recalling  how 
the  words  look,  and  about  where  they  ought  to 
come.  For  little  children,  of  course,  who  can- 
not read,  this  is  not  usable  at  the  first  stages. 
When  children  can  read,  it  should  be  culti- 
vated. But  the  earliest  form  is  that  acquired 
through  hearing.  Before  written  language 
came  into  existence,  this  is  the  manner  in  which 
history,  literature,  and  folk-lore  were  trans- 
mitted, one  generation  repeating  to  another 
what  it  had  heard.     In  the  Bible,  the  Israel- 


ENGLISH!  ENGLISH!  ENGLISH!  51 

ites  are  often  enjoined  to  remember  things, 
that  "ye  may  tell  it  to  the  generation  follow- 
ing." The  Homeric  poems  are  said  to  have 
been  preserved  in  this  way  before  they  were 
committed  to  writing.  Certain  it  is,  that 
much  of  our  knowledge  of  the  ancient  and 
primitive  world  has  come  down  to  us  simply 
through  the  memory  wrought  by  the  hearing 
of  the  ear.  Some  teachers  employ  this 
method  in  teaching  modern  languages  by  hav- 
ing correct  speakers  make  records  for  grapho- 
phones,  that  there  may  be  no  mistakes  of  pro- 
nunciation made.  These  can  be  repeated  over 
and  over  again,  and  thus  the  ear  trained  to 
recognize  the  correct  forms.  The  jDarent- 
teacher  gets  the  same  result  by  reading  out 
loud,  but  with  the  human  interest  and  the  op- 
portunity for  interrogation  and  explanation 
added. 

The  aural  memory  is  more  potent  than  any 
other  in  childhood,  because  it  brings  to  its  as- 
sistance all  the  natural  interest  of  the  child  in 
the  parent.  The  reading  mother  convej^s  not 
only  what  she  reads,  but  what  she  is,  to  the 
child.  She  unconsciously  betrays  in  her  voice 
and  manner  and  emotions,  to  the  child,  what 
affects  her,  and  what  interests  her,  and  what 
has  significance  to  her.  As  a  good  reader,  she 
cannot  help  doing  this,  and  as  a  good  mother, 


52  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

she  does  not  want  to  help  it.  She  knows  that 
this  is  tlie  way  she  is  huilding  up  the  closest 
possible  bond  between  herself  and  her  child. 
If  she  can  memorize  some  of  the  things  she 
wants  the  child  to  hear,  and  recite  them,  so 
much  the  better,  at  times,  because  then  she  vis- 
ualizes to  the  child  what  a  gift  good  memory 
is,  and  the  pleasure  her  listener  experiences 
in  seeing  the  mother  do  these  things  creates 
a  desire  to  do  them  also.  Sometimes  words 
sound  their  meaning.  For  instance,  you  can- 
not say  "whistle"  without  making  a  sound 
which  resembles  the  thing.  "Wlierever  you 
meet  a  word  which  has  the  capacity  for  this  use, 
link  the  thing  and  the  word  together.  Soimd 
and  meaning  going  together  fix  the  word,  but 
do  more ;  they  cause  the  child  to  be  on  the  watch 
for  other  words  whose  sound  and  meaning  are 
linked  together. 

In  discussing  the  subject  of  memory,  Pro- 
fessor James  says:  "The  first  point  to  be 
noticed  is  that  for  a  state  of  mind  to  survive 
in  Jiiemory,  it  must  have  endured  for  a  certain 
length  of  time/*  And  again,  "all  the  intellec- 
tual value  for  us  of  a  state  of  mind  depends  on 
our  after-memory  of  it.  Only  then  is  it  com- 
bined in  a  system,  and  knowingly  made  to  con- 
tribute to  a  result."  ^     What  this  means  for 

-i^  Psychology,  Vol,  I,  pp.  643-644. 


ENGLISH!  ENGLISH!  ENGLISH!  53 

our  purpose  is,  that  you  must  not  expect  that 
mere  "touch  and  go"  with  anything  will  leave 
any  impression  on  the  child's  permanent  intel- 
lectual strength.  That  anything  may  be 
memorized  and  leave  a  result,  it  has  to  be  con- 
veyed clearly,  slowly,  and  definitely.  A  cer- 
tain measure  of  time  has  to  be  allowed  for  it 
to  sink  into  the  mind.  Repetition  does  this, 
but  it  should  not  be  neglected  on  this  account 
to  read  slowly,  and  with  precision,  at  the  be- 
ginning. The  real  value,  as  Professor  James 
says,  lies  in  the  after-memory,  which  merely 
means  that  part,  which  remains  after  the  con- 
ditions which  have  produced  it,  or  in  which  it 
arose,  have  passed  away. 

This  is  the  explanation  why  so  many  things 
are  so  absolutely  and  easily  forgotten.  They 
were  told  all  right,  but  told  too  quickly,  and 
not  allowed  to  have  their  proper  right  of  way 
in  the  matter  of  time  allowance,  and  so  soon 
passed  out  of  the  mind,  just  as  they  came  into 
it.  It  is  the  time  element  which  makes  suffer- 
ing, for  example.  Pain  for  an  instant  is  not 
recognized  as  pain.  A  mere  momentary  shock 
is  never  called  pain.  But  when  it  has  time  to 
make  itself  perfectly  clear,  though  the  time  re- 
quired for  this  is  not  long,  its  nature  is  clearly 
recognized.  We  never  think  of  a  brief,  un- 
pleasant sensation  as  pain.     In  a  similar  way. 


54.  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

we  never  think  of  a  mere  instant  of  pleasant 
sensation,  as  pleasure.  The  time  element 
makes  them  both.  It  is  the  same,  though  the 
medium  is  somewhat  different,  with  ideas.  If 
you  want  a  thing  remembered,  say  it  slowly, 
say  it  clearly,  say  it  distinctly,  and  say  it  often  1 
Rapid  speakers  thrill  the  imagination  and  stir 
the  emotions,  but  slow  speakers,  other  things 
being  equal,  convey  ideas,  and  influence  opin- 
ions. The  simple  reason  is  that  one  gives  a 
momentary  sensation  of  pleasantness,  the 
other  impresses  the  message. 

II 

This  whole  process  is  made  interesting  by 
the  careful  study  of  the  gro^vth  and  variation 
of  words  from  particular  stems.  A  more  de- 
tailed explanation  of  this  matter  is  given  un- 
der the  chapter  dealing  with  the  teaching  of 
language.  For  the  present  purpose,  it  is  im- 
portant to  note  that  ivords  have  a  history,  just 
like  human  beings.  If  they  come  from  a  for- 
eign language,  they  have  what  is  called  a  stem, 
and  from  this  stem  many  other  words  are 
formed,  and  this  is  due  to  the  fact  that  every 
such  change  indicates  the  need  for  a  new  dif- 
ferentiation of  meaning.  All  our  prefixes 
and  suffixes  are  due  to  this  need.  Every  such 
variation    shows    that    something    has    been 


ENGLISH!  ENGLISH!  ENGLISH!  55 

added,  or  subtracted,  or  altered,  in  the  root 
meaning  of  the  word.  Take  for  example  such 
a  word  as  position.  Now  just  work  out  from 
position  how  and  why  you  get  com-position, 
dis-position,  ap-position,  and  then  compare 
these  with  such  words  as  pose,  suppose,  dispose, 
repose,  and  the  like.  Now,  all  these  come  from 
a  common  stem.  Then  add  comparison  of 
such  words  as  positive,  suppositive,  appositive, 
and  the  hke.  From  these  many  more  can  be 
worked  out.  Almost  any  Latin  grammar  will 
give  the  number  of  the  principal  stems,  and 
the  reading  of  almost  any  book  will  furnish  the 
laboratory  for  the  working  out  of  many  such 
analyses.  The  intelligent  guide  of  young 
children,  when  one  such  word  is  met  the  first 
time,  will  immediately  use  all  her  own  knowl- 
edge to  bring  to  the  attention  and  suggest  for 
reflection,  many  similar  words  and  derivatives 
from  the  same  stem,  and  thus  build  up  the 
habit  of  observing  words  in  their  similarities 
and  dissimilarities.  This  can  be  made  the 
most  interesting  practise  for  the  child,  and 
makes  a  dictionary  one  of  the  most  fascinat- 
ing of  books.  While  this  is  being  done,  the 
difference  between  nouns,  verbs,  adjectives, 
adverbs,  and  other  parts  of  speech,  can  be 
taught,  which  will  presently  show  to  the 
teacher  and  the  child  alike,  that  grammar,  so 


56  TEACHING  IX  THE  HOME 

far  from  being  a  dull,  uninteresting  study,  is 
one  of  the  most  rewarding,  as  well  as  one  of 
the  most  alluring. 

It  does  not  take  long  for  children  to  become 
interested  in  this  process,  which  is  really  a  kind 
of  elementary  philolog}\  Then  again,  almost 
any  dictionary  will  give  the  origin  of  words, 
and  this  will  give  the  material  for  many  an  in- 
teresting discussion  and  exposition  as  to  how 
any  word  reached  its  present  form.  But  there 
are  not  only  words  of  this  kind,  but  there  are 
words  that  have  lost,  or  changed  their  mean- 
ing, that  is,  changed  their  character.  Some 
words  which  once  had  a  perfectly  good  mean- 
ing, have  now  come  to  mean  something  bad  or 
of  sinister  intent.  Similarlj'^  other  w^ords  have 
come  up  in  the  social  scale,  and  now  have  good 
standing,  where  once  they  had  no  character. 
There  are  degraded  words  and  there  are  res- 
cued words,  and  there  are  fossil  words,  all  of 
which  are  to  be  met  with  constantly  in  books, 
and  the  study  of  English  in  this  manner  brings 
this  out,  to  the  constant  delight  of  the  child. 
But  you  will  have  quite  as  much  pleasure  and 
satisfaction  yourself,  if  you  take  the  trouble 
to  do  this  a  few  times,  and  the  chief  result  is, 
that  the  habit  is  formed  of  looking  at  the  form 
of  the  word,  and  finding  out  what  the  original 
part  of  it  was,  and  how  much  has  been  added, 


ENGLISH!  ENGLISH!  ENGLISH!  57 

either  in  front  or  behind.  It  does  not  need 
any  argument  to  convince  the  reader  that,  in 
this  way,  the  science  of  grammar  is  made  in- 
teresting, and  for  the  most  part,  without  the 
child's  consciousness  that  it  is  studying  gram- 
mar, and  the  immense  value  of  this  later  on 
can  hardly  be  overestimated.  When  the 
study  of  syntax  is  formally  taken  up,  this 
preparation  is  most  valuable,  because  it  is 
really  the  beginning  of  syntax.  It  would  be 
a  good  plan  for  the  teacher  to  take  half  a  dozen 
such  words  daily — though  this  is  a  large  num- 
ber at  first — and  go  through  this  process,  and 
it  will  be  found  that  the  child's  vocabulary  in 
this  fashion  grows  by  leaps  and  bounds.  It 
may  be  made  almost  a  kind  of  play,  but  the 
important  thing  is  that  it  is  playing  with  real 
knowledge,  and  building  up  the  one  instru- 
ment by  which  knowledge  is  most  effectively 
approached. 

The  building  up  of  the  English  base  here 
suggested,  should  be  carried  on  with  every 
other  study.  If  you  are  teaching  history,  let 
every  history  lesson  be  also  a  lesson  in  Eng- 
lish. If  you  are  teaching  science,  let  every 
science  lesson  be  also  a  lesson  in  English.  If 
you  are  teaching  geography,  let  it  also  be  a 
lesson  in  English.  Keep  this  constantly  in 
the  foreground  of  all  your  teaching.     Hy  this 


'58  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

persistent  emphasis  on  the  nature,  origin,  com- 
position and  character  of  words,  you  are  mak- 
ing a  tool  which  will  enrich  every  other  study, 
because  in  studying  that  particular  branch, 
the  interest  is  increased  by  the  observing 
watchfulness  of  the  medium  by  which  it  is  con- 
veyed. In  this  way  the  child  will  gradually, 
without  knowing  why,  notice  how  words  of 
general  meaning  come  to  have  a  special  sense, 
and  are  used  in  that  special  sense  quite  as 
often  as  they  are  used  in  the  general  sense. 
How  slang  words  become  words  of  good  usage 
in  this  manner  is  a  very  interesting  study,  like- 
wise. Use  the  dictionary  a  great  deal,  be- 
cause this  is  the  beginning  of  the  habit  of  con- 
sulting authorities.  As  a  writer  in  Black- 
woods  Magazine  remarks:  "A  dictionary  is 
not  bad  reading  on  the  whole.  It  is  much 
more  endurable  than  a  good  many  of  what  are 
called  lighter  books,  and  not  much  more  un- 
connected. In  the  hands  of  a  patient  reader, 
it  would  form  almost  a  course  of  study  in  it- 
self, and  very  far  from  a  dry  one;  he  would 
make  the  acquaintance  in  its  pages  with  a  good 
many  English  authors  to  whom  no  one  else  is 
likely  to  introduce  him;  and  though  this  ac- 
quaintance would  certainly,  in  one  sense,  be 
very  superficial,  it  would  not  in  that  respect 
differ   from  popular   knowledge   in  general. 


ENGLISH!  ENGLISH!  ENGLISH!  59 

and  would  at  least  have  the  advantage  of  being 
accurate  and  critical,  so  far  as  it  went  in  point 
of  style." 

This  is  nothing  more  than  the  literal  truth. 
Anyone  who  will  read  the  preface  to  Johnson's 
Dictionary  of  1755  will  have  a  fresh  and  in- 
spiring renewal  of  respect  for  dictionaries  and 
dictionary  makers,  especially  if  he  will  turn 
to  "Grub  Street,"  pathetically  connected  with 
Johnson  himself,  and  find,  as  one  writer  has 
said,  "The  personal  element  verging  on  the 
side  of  pathos,"  as  where  Grub  Street  is  defined 
as  "a  street  much  inhabitated  by  writers  of 
small  histories,  dictionaries,  and  temporary 
poems;  whence  any  mean  production  is  called 
Grub  Street,"  and  lexicographer,  as  a  "writer 
of  dictionaries,  a  harmless  drudge."  ^  By  all 
means  use  and  teach  the  use  of  dictionaries. 

Ill 

But  in  this  process  of  mastering  English, 
and  getting  the  feeling  for  English  words, 
there  must  be  great  care  taken  to  avoid  its  be- 
coming mere  verbal  merchanics.  The  imita- 
tive faculties  in  children  are  very  strong,  and 
soon  awaken  a  more  positive  force,  called  de- 
sire; therefore,  it  must  be  kept  in  mind,  that, 
unless  you  want  to  train  a  little  prig  who  will 

1  Tucker,  Our  Common  Speech,  p.  IH. 


60  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

simply  bewilder  people  and  make  himself  un- 
liva])Ie,  all  these  acquisitions  must  be  made 
really  his  own;  that  is,  he  must  be  given  a 
chance  to  exercise  himself  in  them,  blunder,  if 
necessary,  in  them,  but  use  them,  and  make 
them  a  real  and  genuine  part  of  himself.  "I 
would  not  only  have  him  (the  teacher)  de- 
mand an  account  of  the  words  contained  in  his 
lesson,"  says  Montaigne,  in  his  great  essay  on 
The  Education  of  Children,  "but  of  the  sense 
and  substance  thereof,  and  judge  of  the 
profit  he  hath  made  of  it,  not  by  the  testimony 
of  his  memory,  but  by  the  witness  of  his  life. 
That  w^hat  he  lately  learned,  he  causes  him  to 
set  forth  and  portray  the  same  into  sundry 
shapes,  and  then  to  accommodate  it  to  as  many 
different  and  several  subjects,  whereby  he 
shall  perceive  whether  he  have  yet  appre- 
hended the  same,  and  therein  enfeoffed  him- 
self." What  this  means  is,  that  as  soon  as  the 
child  begins  to  have  any  verbal  treasures  he 
shall  use  them  in  general  conversation,  and 
shall  be  made  to  apply  the  skill  he  has  acquired 
in  one  direction  in  as  many  others  as  possible. 
"I  w^ould  have  the  scholar  narrowly  sift  all 
things,"  he  adds,  "with  discretion  and  harbor 
nothing  in  his  head  by  mere  authority  or  upon 
trust."  For  this  purpose,  practice  is  very  es- 
sential.    Table  talk  is  the  very  best  time  and 


ENGLISH!  ENGLISH!  ENGLISH!  61 

place  for  this  sort  of  thing.  You  can  play- 
back and  forth  with  language  as  you  can  with 
tennis  balls,  and  can  have  all  kinds  of  enjoy- 
ment and  profit  in  the  exercise  with  language, 
which  will  quickly  incorporate  what  is  learned 
into  common  and  general  use. 

Cultivate  in  this  manner,  the  spirit  and 
habit  of  inquiry  and  reasoning.  What  I  have 
said  in  my  previous  volume  on  the  subject  of 
questions  and  answers,  may  be  here  used  w^ith 
telling  effect.  Even  a  little  child  will  quickly 
discern  the  different  uses  of  the  same  word. 
Let  it  work  out  how  the  difference  arose,  and 
make  occasions  for  the  inquiry.  This  is  what 
the  Greeks  did  with  their  children,  and  we 
should  do  it  especially  with  the  mother  tongue. 
Wliether  you  have  been  teaching  grammar, 
or  geography,  or  history,  cultivate  the  habit 
of  having  the  child  tell  the  result  of  its  studies 
to  the  family,  perhaps  to  the  other  parent,  and 
let  the  child  thus  have  the  pleasure  and  the  ex- 
ercise of  being  teacher  of  the  things  he  has 
been  taught.  This  will  bring  fiuenc)^  in  use, 
as  well  as  clearness  of  ideas,  and  will  furnish 
the  best  manner  conceivable,  for  observing 
what  the  tendencies  of  the  child  are,  and  what 
to  emphasize,  and  what  to  avoid. 

One  of  the  commonest  defects  in  this  con- 
nection with  young  people  is  that  they  are  per- 


6i  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

mitted  in  replying  to  questions,  or  giving  in- 
formation, to  use  ejaculations,  or  disconnected 
words.  The  corrective  for  all  this  is  to  re- 
quire and  have  all  information  spoken  in  com- 
plete sentences.  That  calls  for  a  recapitula- 
tion in  thought  of  what  has  gone  before,  clari- 
fies the  mind,  and  helps  to  clearness  and  pre- 
cision in  speech.  It  makes  for  reasoning 
power,  too,  because  it  calls  for  logical  sequence. 
Do  not  permit  your  questions  to  be  answered 
in  a  single  word.  Require  them  to  be  an- 
swered in  a  form  which  may  be  committed  to 
writing,  showing  what  the  question  was.  In 
fact,  it  is  evidence  of  a  good  answer  to  any- 
thing, that  it  indicates  with  reasonable  clear- 
ness what  induced  it.  JNIany  letters,  for  ex- 
ample, are  utterly  unintelligible,  because  they 
are  disjointed  replies  to  something  contained 
in  a  previous  letter,  which  has  either  been  for- 
gotten or  is  remembered  so  vaguely,  that  the 
ground  has  to  be  gone  over  again  if  the  mat- 
ter is  at  all  worth  while.  It  would  be  inter- 
esting, if  it  were  possible,  to  find  out  how 
many  needless  business  letters  are  written,  be- 
cause of  just  this  failure  to  make  clear  in  re- 
plies, what  the  subject  matter  or  the  particu- 
lar phase  of  the  subject  matter,  the  reply  has 
reference  to.  In  family  conversation,  where 
children  are  present,  it  is  a  good  habit,  when 


ENGLISH!  ENGLISH!  ENGLISH!  63 

any  subject  is  discussed,  to  pause  when  the 
material  becomes  too  mature  or  complex,  and 
explain  what  is  being  discussed.  By  this,  I 
do  not  mean  that  the  conversation  shall  be 
interrupted  or  made  infantile,  but  when  an 
unusual  idea  or  word  appears,  explain  it  as 
you  go  along.  It  is  then  seen  in  actual  use, 
and  probably  more  surely  fixed  in  the  memory 
for  that  reason. 

With  all  these  exercises  and  habits,  taste 
develoj)s,  and  on  tins  point  too  much  emphasis 
cannot  he  laid.  The  habitual  use  and  hearing 
of  good  English  not  only  makes  good  taste  to 
develop  naturally,  but  does  more;  it  soon  cre- 
ates impatience,  with  bad  taste,  and  makes 
children  notice  false  English  usage  and  bad 
forms  of  speaking.  Hearing  good  selections 
read  to  them  regularly,  and  having  these  dis- 
cussed in  good  English,  and  then  having  the 
verbal  sense  steadily  developed,  there  is 
formed  insensibly  a  standard  of  language  and 
reading  which  soon  requires  sufficient  momen- 
tum to  take  care  of  itself.  Good  matter  will 
commend  itself,  and  the  matter  that  is  not  good 
will  lead  to  its  own  rejection.  But  here,  as 
in  other  things,  there  should  be  persistence  in 
getting  rid  of  false  conceptions  of  language 
and  of  words,  and  the  models  chosen  should 
be  of  a  kind  which  recommend  themselves. 


64  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

Dwell  on  beautiful  images  in  any  work  you 
happen  to  be  reading,  an  apt  illustration,  a 
fine  figure  of  speech,  something  that  lends  it- 
self readily  to  repetition  and  memorizing, 
and  make  all  these  practices  work  together. 
The  results  will  be  astonishing,  even  after  a 
little  faithful  work,  but  it  will  be  an  increasing 
delight  to  see  the  unfolding  of  the  child  mind 
as  the  linguistic  sense  grows,  and  the  pleasure 
with  which  its  exercise  is  extended.  Even  the 
blunders  made  w^ll  be  interesting,  and  often 
illuminating  and  instructive.  But  at  each  and 
every  turn,  whatever  the  subject,  whatever  the 
occasion,  whatever  the  object,  w^hether  it  be 
formal  study,  informal  speech,  or  play,  keep 
it  in  the  region  where  it  admits  of  noble,  pure, 
and  clean  English  expression. 


CHAPTER  III 

GRAMMAR 

"Precision,"  says  Professor  Austin  Phelps, 
"especially,  is  one  of  those  products  of  schol- 
arly taste  which  is  not  apt  to  attract  a  man  for 
the  first  time  in  middle  life  or  old  age.  Youth 
must  plant  it,  or  it  will  not  flourish  in  mature 
age"  In  opening  the  subject  of  grammar 
for  young  children,  I  suppose  there  is  no 
doubt  that  this  is  the  one  which  has  gathered 
around  it  most  traditions  of  dislike,  unless  it 
be  the  barren  and  worthless  study  of  arith- 
metic and  its  adjunct  senseless  problems. 
But  grammar,  so  far  from  being  an  uninter- 
esting study,  is  really  a  very  interesting  affair, 
especially  if  it  be  begun  in  the  right  way. 
And  even  more  so,  when  it  is  allied  with  ety- 
mology, and  the  uses  of  words,  and  the  form 
and  derivation  of  words,  long  before  formal 
composition  is  begun. 

Grammar  is  language  conscious  of  itself. 
Usage,  of  course,  makes  for  correct  and  gram- 
matical speech  more  than  all  other  things  com- 
bined, but  attention  directed  to  form  and  ar- 

65 


66  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

rangement  and  structure  of  speech,  at  an  early 
age,  makes  for  the  kind  of  precision  wliich 
makes  the  study  of  grammar  interesting  in  it- 
self, and  takes  off  the  edge  of  the  dreari- 
ness of  the  necessary  preparation  for  the  study 
of  foreign  languages  later  on  in  the  course. 
The  reason  why  the  classics  have  dropped  out 
so  extensively,  is,  that  young  people  who  were 
brought  to  them  had  no  linguistic  preparation, 
knew  no  English  to  speak  of,  had  no  feeling 
for  the  use  of  words,  had  no  appreciation  of 
when  a  thing  was  well-said  or  ill-said,  and  that 
made  all  attention  to  such  matters  stupid  and 
apparently  useless.  It  was  not  strange,  and 
it  will  not  be  changed  until  we  come  to  the 
matter  from  a  different  road. 

What  has  just  been  said  indicates  where  the 
study  of  grammar  should  really  begin.  It  be- 
gins in  the  appreciation  of  style.  I  see  peo- 
ple smile  when  I  talk  of  appreciation  of  style 
in  little  children.  But  you  can  readily  prove 
the  truth  of  the  possibility  of  such  apprecia- 
tion, by  taking  pages  from  various  authors 
and  reading  them  to  children,  and  see  what 
they  like,  and  what  they  dislike,  and  then  ask- 
ing the  reason  why.  You  will  find,  generally 
speaking,  that  a  clear,  lucid  style  which  con- 
vej's  its  ideas  with  the  least  confusion  of 
thought,  which  says  what  it  means,  and  says 


GRAMMAR  67 

it  with  clearness  and  force,  holds  the  attention, 
and  causes  reflection  about  the  matter  of  the 
composition,  while  a  style  that  is  involved  and 
confused,  does  not  produce  this  result.  You 
will  find,  for  example,  that  in  compositions 
that  are  specially  intended  for  young  children, 
the  use  of  adjectives  tends  to  make  for  atten- 
tion and  interest,  while  the  use  of  successive 
clauses  tends  to  destroy  it.  The  newspapers 
have  found  this  out  long  ago,  and  have  worked 
it  to  the  detriment  of  their  readers.  They 
make  their  reporters  write  crisp,  direct  sen- 
tences. They  make  them  deal  with  concrete 
things.  They  enforce  tlie  use  of  names. 
They  write  around  personalities.  They  use 
adjectives  often  innumerable.  That  makes  a 
paper  "readable"  for  many  persons  who  other- 
wise would  never  read  at  all. 

Now  this  style  culture  comes  from  reading 
steadily,  often  a  single  author  whose  style  is 
good.  Franklin  is  said  to  have  formed  his 
style  from  the  study  and  influence  of  Defoe. 
Professor  Phelps  quotes  Max  MuUer  as  say- 
ing, "That  a  well  educated  person  who  has 
been  at  a  public  school  in  England,  and  at  an 
English  university,  who  reads  his  Bible  and 
Shakspere,  and  all  the  books  in  Mudie's  H- 
brary,  that  is,  nineteen-twentieths  of  all  the 
books  published  in  England,  seldom  uses  more 


68  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

than  three  or  four  thousand  words  in  actual 
conversation."  That  is  interesting  as  show- 
ing how  easily  the  vocabulary  may  be  ac- 
quired, which  will  meet  all  the  exigencies  of 
contact  with  persons  like  those  described,  and 
the  standard  in  America  is  probably  much 
lower.  It  has  recently  been  shown  that  chil- 
dren can  readily  acquire  the  requisite  number 
of  words,  and  if  they  are  interested  in  the 
words  themselves,  their  arrangement  and  use 
through  the  medium  of  grammar  is  a  very  in- 
teresting process.  What  has  made  it  unin- 
teresting in  the  past,  is,  that  children  and 
young  people  have  known  nothing  about 
words!  The  very  vocabulary  of  the  gram- 
mars they  were  studying  was  unknown  to 
them!  This  is  true  about  most  of  the  text- 
books children  study  at  this  moment.  Once 
interest  them  in  the  units  of  language  as  ob- 
jects themselves  worthy  of  stud}^  the  rest  fol- 
lows naturally. 

The  infallible  test  of  style  is,  that  one  does 
not  need  to  read  a  sentence  twice.  Of  course, 
this  rule  may  be  pushed  too  far,  and  there  are 
some  sentences  which  must  be  read  many 
times,  whose  style  is  good  and  whose  wealth 
of  meaning  requires  such  intensive  study. 
But,  roughly  speaking,  clearness  is  tested  by 
the  fact  that  it  requires  no  repetition.     Every 


GRAMMAR  69 

time  you  have  to  ask  yourself,  "Now,  what 
does  that  mean?"  you  prove  conclusively  one 
of  two  things,  either  your  own  defect  of  Eng- 
lish or  the  author's  want  of  precision  and  clear- 
ness. You  will  find  this  defect  many  times 
illustrated  in  this  book,  and  the  reason  is,  that 
I  am  dealing  with  so  illusory  a  problem,  as  try- 
ing to  tell  in  words,  what  so  often  in  teaching 
children  I  did  with  no  conscious  intellectual 
effort.  I  know  exactly  what  moved  me  in  do- 
ing the  particular  things  I  did.  How  to  make 
that  clear,  so  that  others  may  be  similarly 
moved,  is  not  so  easy  as  it  appears,  because  so 
many  elements  were  combined  in  the  process. 
In  cultivating  and  teaching  tlie  grammatical 
sense,  you  must  keep  in  mind  not  only  that 
you  are  to  use  language  intelligible  to  the 
child,  but  at  the  same  time  convey  what  you 
finally  want  to  he  mastered,  which  is  some- 
thing more  than  can  be  put  into  words.  It 
must  be  assumed,  therefore,  for  the  purposes 
here  in  mind,  that  there  is  habitual  reading 
aloud,  and  habitual  effort  to  interest  both  the 
parent  and  child  in  words  for  their  own  sake, 
and  the  making  of  frequent  experiments  in 
such  words,  usage,  entirely  apart  from  the 
purpose  of  teaching  grammar.  Now,  the  only 
reason  for  teaching  grammar  is,  that  it  will 
prove  a  tool  for  further  linguistic  study,  and 


70  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

linking  it  to  the  process  of  formal  education, 
and  make  the  linguistic  knowledge  acquired, 
current  coin  of  intellectual  interchange.  It 
is  important  not  only  to  know  it,  but  know  it 
in  such  a  way  that  it  may  be  applied  to  the 
larger  uses  of  education.  Knowledge  comes 
in  this  way  only.  Behind  all  real  knowledge 
there  is  form  and  classification,  and  conscious 
choice  of  one  thing,  rather  than  another. 
Grammar  is  that  conscious  choice,  applied  to 
words,  their  arrangement  in  groups  called 
sentences,  clauses,  paragraphs,  and  the  like. 
It  is  both  dissection  and  construction  of  spoken 
and  written  speech. 


Grammar  with  young  children  should  be- 
gin with  a  careful,  though  simple,  definition  of 
words,  as  parts  of  speech.  It  may  seem  curi- 
ous, but  on  this  simple  classification  man/ 
children  of  ten  or  twelve  are  very  much  in  the 
dark,  though  there  is  not  the  slightest  reason 
why  they  should  not,  long  before  that  time 
have  thoroughly  mastered  the  rudiments  of 
grammar.  Now,  the  definition  of  the  parts 
of  speech  has,  itself,  been  made  irritating  and 
complex.  Nouns  may  simply  be  called  name- 
ivords^  though  when  it  has  been  made  perfectly 
clear  that  nouns  are  name-words,  the  word 


GRAMMAR  71 

nouns  should  be  constantly  employed.  A 
noun,  I  used  to  say  to  my  own  children,  is  a 
name,  or  something  that  stands  for  a  name. 
Here  you  begin  with  all  kinds  of  illustrations, 
perhaps  calhng  for  all  kinds  of  objects,  and 
having  them  named,  and  then  having  it  under- 
stood that  when  such  words  are  referred  to  in 
grammar  they  are  nouns.  You  can  do  that 
easily  with  children  of  three,  as  I  did.  Hav- 
ing thus  made  it  clear  that  a  noiin  is  a  name- 
word,  you  can  gather  all  kinds  of  nouns,  and 
classify  them,  in  turn,  as  having  one  or  an- 
other  kind  of  classification.  I  recall  that  the 
children  had  special  pleasure  in  picking  out 
collective  nouns,  such  as  fleet,  flock,  herd,  and 
the  like.  But,  in  any  case,  make  it  clear  that 
this  noun  is  the  visible  symbol,  the  name  of 
a  thing  complete  in  itself. 

In  a  similar  way,  a  verb  is  a  do-xvord.  Tliat 
is  enough  for  your  present  purpose,  and  opens 
the  field  of  words  of  action  and  gets  the  funda- 
mental idea  safely  established.  You  follow 
the  same  plan  about  all  kinds  of  verbs,  and 
you  will  not  be  surprised  if  your  little  pupil 
takes  the  words  he  has  heard  you  read  about, 
and  link  nouns  and  verbs  together  in  simjjle 
sentences  quite  without  any  instruction  what- 
ever. Wlien  this  happens,  you  may  at  once 
tell  the  child  that  when  such  a  simple  state- 


72  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

ment  is  made,  it  is  a  sentence.  It  was  on  this 
account,  that  before  the  parts  of  speecli  were 
thoroughly  learned,  my  children  had  turned 
simple  sentences  into  various  forms,  and  soon 
knew  how  to  recognize  a  declarative  sentence, 
an  interrogative  sentence,  one  that  contained 
an  exclamation,  and  one  that  expressed  a 
command.  It  used  to  be  a  great  pleasure  for 
them  to  try  themselves  out  with  this  kind  of 
play,  and  find  out  their  limitations,  and  also 
what  can  and  what  cannot  be  done,  with  the 
same  words.  Just  remember  that  you  are 
simply  making  the  child  acquainted  "with  the 
usual  nomenclature  of  the  science  of  gram- 
mar. That  is  your  main  business  now,  and 
everj^thing  else  is  clear  gain. 

Having  thus  established  your  bases,  you 
will  build  around  them.  In  taking  up  the 
subject  of  adjectives,  I  used  to  take  the  word 
"adjective,"  and  analyze  it,  and  show  what  it 
meant,  and  so  link  adjectives  with  nouns  as 
neighbors  and  dependents.  The  qualities  or 
size  of  objects  lends  itself  very  readily  to  this 
sort  of  teaching.  Sometimes,  their  form  or 
substance  made  the  thing  more  interesting. 
And  so,  by  easy  stages,  the  child  came  to  rec- 
ognize that  adjectives  are  words  that  tell  some- 
thing about  a  noun.  That  is  all  they  need  to 
know  at  the  outset,  and  it  is  a  simple  and  un- 


GRAMMAR  73 

complicated  idea.  Upon  that  base  you  can 
build  the  whole  conception  of  modifiers.  The 
more  adjectives  you  use,  the  wider  your  scope 
will  be,  and  incidentally  you  will  have  your 
chance  made  to  teach  about  the  object  itself. 
Color  in  this  way  is  useful,  because  it  comes  in 
handily  later  on  in  describing  birds,  or  plants, 
or  animals,  and  helps  to  lay  the  foundation  for 
the  ideas  of  botany  or  zoology.  Number  tells 
also  in  the  same  way,  as  you  count  the  petals 
of  a  flower  or  the  legs  of  an  insect.  In  short, 
you  simply  get  the  idea  fixed  that  an  adjective 
tells  something  about  a  noun.  Practice  and 
play  at  this  subject  will  be  found  a  great 
amusement,  as  you  explain  why  some  kinds  of 
adjectives  cannot  apply  to  some  kinds  of 
nouns. 

And  just  as  you  have  fixed  the  word  adjec- 
tive in  relation  to  nouns,  so  you  fix  the  word 
adverb  in  relation  to  verbs.  An  adverb  sim- 
ply is  a  word  that  tells  something  about  a  verb. 
Here  you  introduce  adverbs  of  manner,  de- 
scription, or  what  not,  and  group  them  around 
verbs.  So  the  adverbial  idea  is  built  up,  and 
it  needs  only  a  little  practice  to  make  the  ques- 
tioning and  the  answering  mutually  interest- 
ing and  entertaining. 

Sometimes  I  used  to  draw  little  pictures  in- 
dicating the  noun  or  the  verb,  and  then  group 


74  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

around  them  all  the  adjectives  or  adverbs  ap- 
plicable to  each,  and  march  and  counter-march 
them,  pickin<if  up  fresh  ones  as  they  were 
found  ai)plicable,  or  dropping  those  that  were 
found  not  to  be  useful.  Your  main  object  is 
always  to  accustom  the  child  to  think  of  nouns 
as  nouns,  or  verbs  as  verbs,  or  adjectives  as 
adjectives,  and  adverbs  as  adverbs.  Hence, 
when  you  use  a  dictionary,  you  always  note 
what  the  part  of  speech  is,  so  that  the  new 
word  is  classified  from  the  start  in  its  broadest, 
most  general  uses.  That  is  getting  gram- 
mar instruction  by  the  wholesale,  so  to  speak. 
Every  fresh  word  thus  takes  its  place  in 
the  general  language  scheme,  and  you  build 
up  the  linguistic  habit  almost  unconsciously. 
JNIerely  saying  this,  gives  the  idea  that  this  is 
very  stupid  formal  work  for  four-  or  five-year- 
old  children,  but  it  will  not  be  found  so  by  any 
manner  of  means.  Often,  the  children  them- 
selves will  break  in  upon  you,  and  tell  you  the 
part  of  speech  before  you  mention  what  it  is. 
Similarly  a  jwonoun  is  a  ijcord  that  stands 
for  a  noun.  There  is  nothing  complex  about 
that.  The  personal  pronouns  are  very  readily 
understood.  And  because  they  are  so  readily 
understood,  you  can,  in  passing,  teach  all  that 
need  be  kno\Mi  about  number,  because  singu- 
lar and  plural  are  easily  grasped,  and  easily 


GRAMMAR  75 

recognized.  At  the  same  time,  you  can  teach 
all  that  need  be  known  about  gender,  because 
the  masculine  and  feminine  are  ideas  easily 
understood,  and  applied  almost  with  the  be- 
ginning of  speech.  Neuter  is  a  little  more 
difficult,  but  taught  simply  as  applying  to 
things  chiefly  without  life  is  all  that  you  need 
to  do  with  it.  But  you  still  see  at  once  how 
many  of  the  elements  of  parsing  you  have 
here  taught,  and  how  easily  you  can,  in  get- 
ting the  child  to  tell  all  about  a  word,  tell  sub- 
stantially all  that  the  ordinary  high  school  pu- 
pil knows  about  it,  and  sometimes  a  good  deal 
more.  This  sort  of  thing  may  easily  be  in- 
jected into  the  study  of  any  other  subject, 
and  may  be  more  informally  taught  than 
almost  any  other  subject,  as  indeed  it  should 
be. 

Here  you  have  already  five  of  the  parts  of 
speech,  and  the  principal  ones.  The  rest  can 
be  dismissed  in  passing.  About  conjunctions, 
prepositions,  and  interjections,  I  taught  sim- 
ply by  examples.  I  kept,  however,  referring 
to  them,  merely  to  impress  the  name  of  the 
part  of  speech.  Person,  meaning  the  speaker, 
the  person  addressed,  or  the  person  or  thing 
spoken  about,  you  take  along  without  compli- 
cating it  with  special  definition.  But  you 
should  occasionally  remind  the  child  of  the 


76  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

first,  second,  or  third  person,  just  to  keep  the 
classification  in  mind. 

In  all  this,  bear  steadily  in  mind  that  wliat 
you  are  teaching  is  the  nomenclature  of  the 
science  of  grammar,  so  that  when  your  child 
begins  to  study  grammar  in  connection  with  a 
foreign  language,  let  us  say,  Latin,  and  from 
the  beginning,  the  parts  of  speech  are  talked 
about,  it  has  already,  as  a  part  of  its  own  intel- 
lectual equipment,  these  distinctions  made, 
and  does  not  have  to  be  told  anew,  and  told 
stupidly,  w^hat  the  parts  of  speech  are,  or  what 
their  attributes  are,  or  how  they  are  related. 
Keep  it  simple,  of  course.  But  keep  it  clear, 
and  keep  it  in  the  form  in  which  it  must  be 
used  later  on. 

There  is  no  objection  to  your  taking  up 
cases,  if  you  find  that  you  can,  and  care  to  do 
it — personally,  I  did  it,  and  believe  it  to  be 
useful  in  connection  with  the  practice  of  show- 
ing how  w^ords  change  their  form.  In  this 
way  you  show  the  difference  between  declin- 
ing a  noun  and  conjugating  a  verb.  A  rather 
useful  thing  to  know%  and  w^hich,  if  taken  up 
with  the  study  of  Latin,  in  an  elementary  way, 
teaches  many  more  things  than  grammar. 
You  have  already,  in  your  habitual  investiga- 
tion of  words,  shown  the  varieties  of  form,  and 
now  you  can  show  why  they  take  on  these 


GRAMMAR  77 

changes  of  form.  You  can  show  what  a  prefix 
is  and  what  a  suffix  is,  and  the  many  kinds  of 
them,  and  some  of  their  more  obvious  uses. 
And  thus,  by  easy  stages,  you  prepare  the  way 
for  something  else,  namely,  the  building  up 
of  sentence  structure,  and  the  elements  of  such 
structure,  and  their  proper  relations.  When 
this  is  done,  it  should  be  done  with  the  ma- 
terial the  child  himself  supplies,  by  getting 
him  to  make  some  statement  about  some  ob- 
ject or  plaything  with  which  he  is  familiar, 
and  then  taking  the  classification.  Build  sen- 
tences, and  take  them  apart,  just  as  you  would 
blocks. 

In  a  similar  way  you  can  teach  all  that  needs 
to  be  known  about  the  article.  The  use  of  the 
and  a  or  an  is  not  difficult  of  explanation. 
Nor  is  the  making  clear  of  definite  and  indefi- 
nite, this,  and  that,  as  pronouns,  very  hard. 
Simply  get  the  idea  that  tlie  ideas  of  definite 
and  indefinite  are  expressed  in  such  words, 
and  that  is  all  you  need  to  do  at  this  stage. 
It  will  develop  of  itself  a  little  later  on.  So 
also  the  use  of  interrogative  tvords,  rvhich, 
what,  where,  and  the  like,  are  easily  linked 
with  the  idea  of  interrogation,  and  that  is  the 
essential  thing. 

When  the  child  that  has  so  much  equipment 
as  I  have  here  outlined,  fairly  fixed  in  mind. 


78  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

before  it  is  seven  years  of  age  it  will  never 
find  the  subject  of  grammar  dull  or  uninter- 
esting, because  the  word  sense,  and  the  instinct 
for  form,  will  have  been  so  cultivated  that  the 
more  formal  study  will  lend  itself  to  experi- 
mentation in  the  form  of  composition,  which 
children  love  almost  above  all  things.  Of 
course,  for  a  long  time,  this  will  be  oral  compo- 
sition^  telling  of  stories,  and  I  often  used  to 
make  the  acquisitions  in  some  other  study  the 
means  of  getting  this  oral  composition. 
When  a  child  is  invited  to  tell  the  storj^  of 
anything,  you  have  begun  the  subject  of  com- 
position, and  if  there  are,  as  there  were  in  my 
family,  more  than  a  single  child,  each  child 
will  often  interject  something,  or  modify 
something,  or  supply  a  missing  word,  or  alter 
the  form  of  the  statement,  which  is  the  very 
best  practise  imaginable  for  formal  composi- 
tion. Incidentally,  it  trains  the  ear  also,  and 
makes  for  a  demand  for  pure  and  clear  state- 
ment. While  "The  Story,"  which  ran  on  for 
four  years  in  our  nursery,  after  the  children 
had  gone  to  bed,  I  used  to  listen  with  gi-eat  in- 
terest, how  first  one  child,  and  then  another, 
added  an  idea,  or  supplied  one,  when  the  nar- 
rator for  the  evening  ran  out  of  ideas,  or  of- 
fered some  obvious  contradiction  of  something 
that  had  already  been  said,  or  that  seemed  in- 


GRAMMAR  79 

congruous  with  the  narrative.  /  believe,  that 
in  that  continuous  story-telling  to  each  other, 
the  children  got  the  best  language  training 
thetf  ever  received.  I  am  very  sure  they  got 
exactly  what  the  freshman  Enghsh  teachers 
afterward  tried  to  teach  them  in  Harvard,  and 
got  it  more  exphcitly  and  more  effectively. 

II 

You  will  always  keep  in  mind  that  you  are 
doing  all  this  merely  to  build  up  the  use  of 
the  tool  of  knowledge.  You  will  keep  in  mind 
that  your  main  task  in  all  these  matters  is  to 
prepare  the  child  for  the  use  of  books  when 
he  comes  to  the  more  formal  and  serious  in- 
struction. You  will,  by  this  means,  take  off 
the  strange,  confused  atmosphere  with  which 
the  study  of  grammar  is  begun,  and  take  out 
of  it  the  stupidity  with  which  the  subject  is 
often  invested.  Your  little  boy  at  seven, 
when  he  begins  Latin,  though  he  should  begin 
Latin  before  this,  but  assuming  that  he  begins 
Latin  at  seven,  will  not  be  staggered  by  the 
confused  mess  which  usually  confronts  him, 
but  will  understand  how  language  is  made, 
and  what  its  parts  are,  and  why  it  is  needful 
for  him  to  know  something  about  those  parts. 
He  will  seek,  naturally,  the  things  in  the  for- 
eign language  that  resemble  his  own,  and  he 


60  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

will  bring  what  you  have  taught  him  about 
his  own  language  to  bear  upon  the  one  he  is 
about  to  begin.  He  will  have  in  the  back- 
ground of  his  consciousness  a  great  deal  of 
material  which  is  familiar  to  him,  and  it  won't 
seem  so  meaningless  to  him  as  it  often  does. 

I  think  it  is  a  very  good  plan  in  connection 
with  this  study  to  master  a  good  many  words 
in  a  foreign  language,  Latin  again,  for  choice. 
Any  child  can  learn  fifty  Latin  nouns,  and 
these  fifty  will  make  themselves  over  into  a 
thousand  shapes  in  English.  But  their  Latin 
form,  and  often  its  resemblance  to  English 
forms,  helps  to  make  the  grammatical  sense. 
It  is  not  so  easy  with  Latin  verbs,  though 
there,  too,  is  a  field  worth  your  exploitation. 
If  you  don't  know  anything  about  Latin, 
study  it  with  your  child.  That  is  one  of  the 
very  best  ways  of  going  about  anything.  We 
had,  or  perhaps  it  would  be  better  to  say  that 
I  had,  no  natural  interest  in  a  good  many 
things  till  my  children  began  to  show  interest 
in  them,  and  since  that  interest  was  there,  I 
cultivated  it  in  its  scholarly  form.  Thus  they 
got  the  exact  and  accurate  names  of  things  the 
very  first  time.  A  friend  of  mine  has  taught 
his  little  girl  a  perfectly  amazing  amount  of 
knowledge  of  chemistry,  that  being  his  field, 
by  simply  telling  the  child  all  about  the  things 


GRAMMAR  81 

he  was  working  with  at  any  given  time.  That 
httle  girl,  probably,  after  a  few  experiments, 
will  be  able  to  pass  a  college  entrance  examina- 
tion in  chemistry  before  high  school  age.  If 
the  examination  were  oral  instead  of  written^ 
she  would  probably  pass  with  a  high  mark. 
The  lower  mark  will  come  probably,  not  from 
lack  of  knowledge,  but  from  inability  to  write 
quickly  in  a  given  time  and  in  a  satisfactory 
manner  what  the  child  actually  knows  and 
knows  exactly.  But  no  single  child  should 
ever,  on  that  account,  be  held  back.  Most  peo- 
ple of  mature  years  cannot  write  as  well  as  they 
speak,  nor  use  the  skill  and  precision  in  writing 
which  they  use  habitually  in  speech. 

While  I  am  on  this  subject  of  writing,  I 
may  as  well  say  now  that  all  I  have  to  say 
upon  it.  It  was  the  weak  spot  of  my  own 
plans  of  training.  But  as  I  think  it  through, 
it  was  simply  because  I  did  not  realize  early 
enough  that  ultimately  the  tests  must  be  made 
in  writing.  If  I  had  to  do  it  again,  I  should 
begin  very  early  with  writing,  and  make  that 
go  hand  in  hand  with  the  mental  acquisitions. 
Dr.  Montessori  has  shown  that  it  can  be  done, 
and  I  believe  it  can  generally  be  done.  But 
it  takes  more  time  than  I  had  to  give,  and  this 
because  the  exercises  should  be  frequent  rather 
than  long  continued.    But  as  all  examinations 


82  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

have  to  be  taken  in  writing  sooner  or  later,  let 
this  grammatical  study  go  along  with  the  writ- 
ing, and  this,  because  it  will  chiefly  be  with 
single  words  rather  than  long  sentences,  and 
hence  may  be  done  with  less  weariness  and  less 
drain  on  the  strength  and  attention  of  the 
child.  I  do  not  believe  complicated  apparatus 
is  necessary  for  this  purpose.  In  fact,  you 
don't  need  costly  appliances  at  all.  Your 
own  skill  and  the  child  will  supply  almost 
everything  you  need,  and  just  as  a  child  al- 
ways loves  its  rag  doll  the  best,  so  generally 
the  things  devised  at  home  have  the  keenest 
interest. 

Drawing  goes  well  with  grammatical  study, 
odd  as  that  seems  to  sound.  Tracing  words 
helps  to  make  their  names  and  forms  linger  in 
the  memory.  Also  supplies  the  "busy"  work 
for  recreation.  Let  the  child  copy  by  means 
of  tracing  paper,  parts  of  maps,  with  the 
names,  and  then  use  these  results  in  connec- 
tion with  your  instruction  as  to  the  names,  and 
their  relation  to  other  things. 

In  this  discussion  of  grammar  study,  1  have 
laid  emphasis  only  upon  the  merest  outlines, 
but  you  will  determine  yourself  by  the  measure 
of  interest  aroused  how  much  farther  you  can 
and  care  to  go.  I  need  not  point  out  that 
while  you  are  doing  all  this  you  are  teaching 


GRAMMAR  83 

spelling  and  showing,  as  you  go  along,  how  a 
word  that  has  one  spelling  has  several  mean- 
ings and  how  much  pleasant  information  and 
experiment  you  can  work  up  out  of  all  this.  I 
have  often  gone,  while  visiting  a  public  school, 
into  a  third  grade  room,  or  even  into  a  kinder- 
garten, and  proved  that  you  could  beguile  chil- 
dren by  the  hour  with  what  was  really  serious 
and  scientific  knowledge  about  the  language. 
And  I  have  been  met  months  after  such  a  talk 
by  the  children  who  heard  it  who  said  to  me 
that  they  remembered  what  I  had  told  them, 
and  proudly  gave  evidence  of  the  truth  of  what 
they  were  saying. 

The  analytic  habit  applied  to  language  will 
also  go  hand  in  hand  with  the  same  habit  when 
you  deal  with  birds,  insects  or  plants.  And 
you  get  habits  of  attention,  concentration  and 
intellectual  curiosity  which  are  really  what  you 
are  trying  to  make.  The  reason  why  you  must 
do  it  in  the  way  of  formal  terms,  queer  as  it 
sounds  to  have  a  three-year-old  recite  to  you 
that  "a  noun  is  a  name  word"  and  that  "a  verb 
is  a  do-word"  is  that  you  must  get  the  child's 
knowledge  into  usable  form  for  the  educational 
mill  into  which  he  will  presently  have  to  go. 
The  educational  institution  has  to  use  the 
ordinary  coinage  of  intellectual  interchange. 
It  has  to  have  a  certain  standard  of  uniformity. 


84  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

It  has  to  use  the  language  of  hooks  and  the 
fonnulas  of  science.  There  is  no  other  way. 
Hence  you  must  not  only  have  the  child  learn 
the  thing,  but  learn  to  express  its  knotvledge  in 
the  form  which  is  the  only  one  in  which  the 
schools  are  able  to  recognize  it.  Xo  public 
school  can  take  account  of  the  individual  child 
to  any  great  extent.  Hence  you  must  produce 
what  they  want  and  must  have  in  the  only 
way  they  are  capable  of  recognizing  it.  It  is 
sad  that  this  is  the  fact,  but  since  it  is  the  fact 
the  sooner  you  recognize  it  the  better. 


CHAPTER  IV 

LANGUAGES 

Language,  as  I  have  said  in  a  previous  vol- 
ume, is  the  tool  of  knowledge.  All  that  is 
suggested  in  this  chapter  is  to  be  taken  in  con- 
nection with  what  has  already  been  said  in  the 
chapters  on  Enghsh  and  grammar.  Though 
there  are  varieties  of  designation,  generally 
speaking,  the  principles  of  one  language  apply 
to  all.  The  parts  of  speech,  though  varying  in 
their  operation  and  function,  are  the  same. 
The  fundamentals  of  grammar  are  not  essen- 
tially for  practical  purposes  different.  Hence 
what  has  been  said  about  English  grammar 
applies  with  equal  force  here. 

Now  in  teaching  a  language  what  do  w^e 
notice  first?  Simply  that  long  before  lan- 
guages are  written  they  are  spoken.  Hence 
language  by  the  vocal  method  is  the  natural 
gateway.  The  reason  why  so  much  so-called 
language  teaching  in  the  schools  fails  is  because 
the  teachers  have  no  consciousness  of  it,  and  this 
applies  almost  as  much  to  English  as  any  other. 
But  while  it  is  not  possible  that  every  teacher 

86 


86  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

will  be  able  to  use  tlie  lanf^uage  colloquially,  it 
is  possible  to  get  such  a  grasp  upon  it,  througb 
perfectly  natural  methods,  as  will  make  the 
approach  to  it  very  easy  and  perfectly  natural, 
taking  away  the  strangeness  and  the  hopeless 
feeling  which  comes  to  so  many  children  when 
they  attack  an  alien  tongue.  It  is  therefore 
wise  and  helpful  to  begin  with  things  which  are 
not  strange  and  which  do  not  make  for  hope- 
lessness, but  which  make  for  familiarity  and 
hopefulness.  This  is  best  accomplished  for 
little  children  in  connection  with  their  English 
and  history.  Here,  through  the  narratives 
which  you  will  read,  the  newspaper  articles  by 
which  you  will  brief  the  news,  which  you  will 
cull  and  give  through  the  medium  of  your  own 
information  and  understanding  to  the  children, 
you  will  naturally  come  upon  many  things 
which  you  know  well  enough  but  which  you 
have  not  transformed  into  what  I  have  called 
negotiable  knowledge.  Let  us  say  you  want  to 
teach  German,  knowing  something  about  it  or 
perhaps  knowing  nothing  about  it. 

Let  us  say  that  you  are  doing  this  while  the 
great  Em'opean  War  is  in  progress.  Hardly 
a  daily  paper  or  magazine  comes  into  your 
home  that  does  not  bring  with  it  scores  of  Ger- 
man words  which  have  now  become  so  familiar 
that  you  know  them  by  sight,  and  almost  their 


LANGUAGES  87 

meaning.  You  hear  or  read  such  terms  as 
Landsturm  and  Landxicehr,  or  you  see  the  ref- 
erence to  a  submarine  as  Untersee,  or  you  see 
the  names  of  cities  hke  Hamburg  and  Ludncig- 
shaven,  or  you  see  references  to  the  German 
Tauhe  or  the  Kreutzer  Emden  or  the  Krieg- 
schiff  Braunschweig  and  the  like.  Now  it  is  a 
perfectly  simple  thing  to  take  all  these  words 
made  vivid  by  dealing  with  matters  of  natural 
conversation  and  discussion,  and  take  a  census 
of  what  you  have  gained  by  this  excursus,  as  I 
now  do,  because  I  got  all  these  words  from  a 
single  newspaper  article.  And  what  have  you 
secured?  You  have  got  the  German  equiva- 
lent for  land,  storm,  defence,  city,  harbor,  dove, 
cruiser,  'war,  ship,  under  and  sea,  all  at  the  first 
attempt.  Now  to  make  a  list  of  these  and  find 
their  compounds,  is  to  make  a  pretty  interest- 
ing collection  in  the  way  of  varied  vocabulary. 
It  is  pretty  much  of  a  single  character  to  be 
sure,  but  the  striking  thing  about  it  is  that  it 
immediately  starts  the  linguistic  sense.  To  call 
an  aeroplane  a  dove  is  an  interesting  fact  to  any 
child.  Warship  readily  suggests  steamship 
and  sailing  ship,  and  other  kinds  of  ships. 
Think  of  the  linguistic  possibilities  of  Untersee 
when  you  divide  it  into  unter,  under;  see,  sea, 
and  then  into  the  well  known  submarine  which 
again  becomes  s^ib,  under  suggesting  at  once 


88  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

subway,  and  marine  with  the  Latin  mans  and 
the  English  mariner,  maritime  and  the  like. 
And  you  got  all  this  out  of  the  article  which  you 
read  at  the  morning  meal  as  the  news  of  the 
day  I  And  for  repetition  you  have  these  terms 
occurring  in  some  form  or  another  every  day, 
making  the  best  kind  of  practise  for  yourself 
as  well  as  your  child.  What  you  thus  do  with 
German  you  can  as  easily  and  readily  do  with 
French.  In  a  word  you  begin  the  language 
just  as  a  child  should  begin  it  and  begins  its 
native  tongue,  by  the  use  of  it. 

Now  that  the  Italians  have  gone  into  the  war 
we  shall  have  also  references  to  the  same  events 
simultaneously  in  several  languages — German, 
French,  Italian,  and  English.  Wliat  better 
opportunity  could  possibly  be  made  for  natur- 
alization in  linguistics?  And  the  knowledge 
can  be  visualized,  too,  because  the  words  can  be 
written  down  side  by  side  and  their  resem- 
blances and  differences  noted.  Almost  any 
child  can  be  made  very  quickly  to  learn  from 
glancing  down  three  parallel  columns  to  find 
the  related  words  or  variants  of  the  same  word 
and  put  them  together  and  when  that  has  been 
done  your  lesson  work  is  made  for  you. 

It  is  not  to  be  understood  that  all  this  re- 
quires exceptional  scholastic  training  or  ability. 
How  academic  does  one  have  to  be  to  see  the 


LANGUAGES  89 

resemblance  between  ship  and  schiff?  Or  be- 
tween haven  and  hafen?  or  between  kreutzer 
and  cruiser?  Anybody  with  a  fairly  good 
ordinary  education  can  do  this,  the  only  thing 
necessary  is  to  do  it.  This  can  be  done  with 
hundreds  of  words  in  any  one  of  the  three  mod- 
ern languages  which  I  have  named.  If  the 
teacher  has  even  a  little  knowledge  of  Latin  the 
work  is  made  by  so  much,  more  interesting  and 
a  Latin  vocabulary  can  be  built  up  at  the  same 
time.  All  that  is  required  is  a  little  reflection 
and  a  little  practice  which  very  soon  will  grow 
to  be  a  most  interesting  personal  enjoyment  as 
well  as  equipment  for  the  instruction  of  the 
child. 

You  will  understand  that  what  you  are  here 
doing  is  by  easy  and  natural  stages  showing 
that  the  same  facts  have  various  forms  of 
visualizing  and  uttering  themselves.  You  are 
planning  to  take  off  the  strangeness  with  which 
a  child  for  the  first  time,  having  had  no  pre- 
vious experience,  hears  a  strange  language. 
And  by  taking  away  that  foreign  feeling  you 
at  once  stimulate  the  ears  to  catch  resemblances 
and  listen  for  suggestive  sounds  and  the  eyes 
look  for  suggestive  signs  by  which  one  equiva- 
lent may  be  exchanged  for  another.  I  have 
taught  very  young  children  a  hundred  words  in 
two  or  three  languages  in  a  day,  in  this  fashion, 


90  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

and  the  knowledge  thus  gained  made  them 
proud  of  their  equipment  and  made  the  acqui- 
sition of  the  next  hundred  a  joy  to  them  and 
to  me. 

The  sim2:)lest  manner  of  doing  this  will  be  by 
means  of  'word-lists  which  are  now  very  easily 
obtainable  in  almost  any  language,  and  select- 
ing the  words  which  by  reason  of  sound  and 
appearance  most  nearly  resemble  English. 
In  fact  learning  a  foreign  language  begins 
with  the  mastery  of  a  vocabulary  just  as  it 
does  with  the  vernacular.  The  less  a  child 
has  to  think  about  what  the  words  mean,  the 
more  readily  it  can  begin  to  think  about  the 
relations  of  the  words  to  each  other  in  the 
structure  of  the  language,  and  the  more  read- 
ily you  can  begin  to  teach  that  structure  in 
the  form  of  grammar,  and  this  applies  to  all 
languages  alike.  Professor  W.  R.  Harper, 
afterward  President  of  the  University  of 
Chicago,  literally  revolutionized  the  study  of 
Hebrew  by  means  of  his  word  lists,  in  which 
he  simply  took  the  words  that  are  most  fre- 
quently used  in  the  Hebrew  Bible  and  created 
the  materials  out  of  which  the  language,  as 
such,  was  studied.  If  on  a  given  page  for  ex- 
ample a  single  much-used  word  occurs  100 
times  and  there  haj^pen  to  be  1000  words  on 
that  page,  you  have  by  mastering  that  xi:ord 


LANGUAGES  91 

learned  one-tenth  of  a  'whole  page.  So  by 
taking  the  most  used  words  of  any  language, 
and  learning  these,  you  annex  whole  acres  of 
text-books  because  the  same  word  occurs  many 
times.  The  acquisition  of  a  working  vocabu- 
lary in  this  manner  is  reall}^  a  very  simple  thing, 
and  when  it  has  been  done  you  have  the  ma- 
terials for  language  study.  This  is  really  what 
you  do  in  your  home,  and  without  knowing  it, 
when  your  child  first  begins  to  talk.  You  sim- 
ply give  to  it  the  working  words,  hot,  cold,  look, 
and  the  like.  You  can  do  much  in  this  way 
that  will  make  any  language  attractive,  and  if 
you  choose  one  with  which  you  have  some  famil- 
iarity yourself,  the  task  will  be  simpler  and 
more  interesting. 

I  have  just  referred  to  German  words.  I 
have  before  me  a  very  interesting  word  list 
prepared  by  one  of  the  best  elementary  teach- 
ers in  the  land.  Dr.  H.  C.  Bierwirth  of  Har- 
vard University.  From  this  list  of  270  of  the 
commonest  nouns  I  select  the  following  just  to 
show  that  one  does  not  need  to  know  much,  or 
indeed  anything,  about  German,  as  such,  to  see 
instantly  how  an  English  and  a  German  word 
may  be  acquired  together  by  a  very  young 
child.  Here  are  such  words  as  apfel,  apple, 
arm,  arm,  betf,  bed,  hint,  blood,  hrot,  bread, 
hruder,  brother,  ding,  thing,  doldor,  doctor, 


92  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

general,  general,  grab,  grave,  hand,  liand,  liilfe, 
help,  hut,  hat,  viond,  moon,  nacht,  night,  paar, 
pair,  prinz,  prince,  rose,  rose,  schildy  shield, 
schaf,  sheep,  tochter,  daughter,  vater,  father, 
wagen,  wagon,  wasser,  water,  icelt,  world, 
wun^ch,  wish, — just  to  select  at  random  from 
the  alphabetical  list.  Now  just  look  at  the 
variety  of  words  given  here  which  almost  inter- 
pret themselves.  The  same  thing  may  be  done 
with  other  parts  of  speech,  these  being  simply 
nouns.  But  what  you  do  in  this  case  is  some- 
thing more  than  merely  to  learn  word  equiv- 
alents. You  are  establishing  the  fact  that 
there  is  a  natural  linguistic  affiliation  between 
English  and  German.  As  you  teach  English 
these  resemblances  will  constantly  appear  and 
you  will,  in  whatever  language  you  are  teach- 
ing, and  in  fact  whatever  you  are  doing,  build 
up  linguistic  power  in  the  form  of  negotiable 
vocabularies.  The  importance  of  this  cannot 
possibly  be  overestimated  for  purposes  of  gen- 
eral culture  and  reading  knowledge  and  power. 
As  a  mind  fertilizer  this  process  has  possibilities 
which  are  simply  without  limit.  Five  or  six 
hundred  words  thus  acquired  in  early  child- 
hood will  readily  be  made  the  basis  for  use  in 
language  study  which  will  make  all  subsequent 
work  a  joy  instead  of  drudgery,  because  there 
will  be  in  existence  already  a  linguistic  con- 


LANGUAGES  93 

sciousness  which  will  be  always  reasoning  from 
what  is  obviously  clear  to  something  that  has 
fascinating  possibilities. 

From  the  singulars  given  above,  it  is  an  easy 
and  natural  step  to  the  jjlurals,  and  through 
this  process  to  the  genders  all  the  while  without 
recourse  to  formal  grammar,  but  merely  in  the 
way  of  fertilizing  and  scouting  on  the  frontiers 
of  the  ultimate  minute  stud}'^  of  the  language 
structure.  The  trouble  always  comes  in  cross- 
ing the  frontier  of  anything.  Once  you  have 
really  crossed  the  border  line,  the  march  is 
easier. 

Turning  now  from  a  modern  language  to  an 
ancient  one,  namely,  Latin.  Here  the  thing  is 
of  much  greater  importance,  because  Latin  is 
the  base  of  so  much  English  and  is  notably  the 
language  of  knowledge.  All  that  I  am  about 
to  suggest  in  this  connection  can  easily  be  done 
with  little  children  and  very  certainly  with  chil- 
dren who  have  reached  the  age  of  six  years. 
From  another  word  list  I  take  the  verbs  dico, 
speak,  facio,  do  and  video,  see,  which  are  used 
1000  times  or  over  in  the  works  of  Cassar  and 
Cicero.  Think  what  the  acquisition  of  those 
three  words  really  means.  Just  by  way  of 
illustration,  let  us  see  what  can  be  found  on  the 
surface  of  those  three  stems,  die,  fae,  and  rid. 
I  turn  to  the  dictionary  and  I  pick  up  at  a 


94.  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

glance,  dictate,  dictation,  dictator,  dictatorial, 
dictature,  diction,  dictionartj  and  dictum.  I 
turn  from  my  dictionary  to  a  hand-book  of 
English  synonyms,  and  I  find  dictate;  com- 
mand, order,  enjoin,  ordain,  decree,  prescribe, 
direct,  point,  urge,  enforce.  You  can  readily 
see  how  this  business  expands,  and  how  I  have 
now  in  hand  the  material  for  all  kinds  of  in- 
struction about  that  single  stem  die  as  apphed 
to  but  a  single  word.  But  with  these  syno- 
nyms I  have  a  great  many  other  things  at  my 
command,  namely,  the  practical  historical  and 
literary  illustrations  of  the  use  of  these  various 
synonyms.  And  all  this  comes  out  of  the  stem, 
to  speak.  Well,  I  take  the  stem  fac.  Again 
just  glancing  along  the  columns  of  a  dictionary 
I  get  such  a  collection  as  this;  fact,  faction, 
factious,  factor,  factored,  factorship,  factory, 
factotum,  factual,  f actuality,  faculative,  and 
faculty.  Just  imagine  what  a  mass  of  thought 
is  here  linked  together  for  your  unspinning! 
Once  more  I  turn  to  my  English  synonyms 
and  I  get  fact;  deed,  performance,  act,  event, 
incident,  occurrence,  circumstance,  reality, 
truth.  You  can  work  out  yourself  how  much 
interesting  matter  can  be  extracted  from  that 
list,  and  you  will  remember  that  I  have  taken 
but  a  single  tcord.  What  I  have  done  -with 
this  single  word  can  be  done  with  each  in  turn. 


LANGUAGES  95 

In  this  way  your  child,  by  having  these  distinc- 
tions pointed  out,  gets  by  leaps  and  bounds  an 
insight  into  thought  and  the  expression  of 
thought  which  is  nothing  but  marvelous. 

Let  us  now  take  the  stem  vid.  Here  the 
connection  is  not  quite  so  clear  because  the 
stem  most  used  is  the  supine  vis.  So  I  turn  to 
vis  in  the  dictionary  and  I  take  again  at  ran- 
dom; visage,  visible,  vision,  visional,  visionary, 
visit,  visitor,  visitant,  visible,  visitation,  and  the 
like.  I  take  visionary  to  my  dictionary  of 
synonyms  and  I  find  visionary;  imaginative, 
romantic,  dreamy,  fanciful,  imaginary'-,  fantas- 
tical, baseless,  shadowy,  unreal,  ideal,  chimer- 
ical. It  only  takes  a  little  imagination  to  indi- 
cate what  wonderful  things  can  be  drawn  out 
of  this  list.  But  here  again,  I  ask  you  to  re- 
member that  I  have  used  only  three  words  in 
this  whole  process.  But  the  three  Latin  stems 
have  even  greater  possibilities  than  those  here 
indicated  because  I  have  said  not  a  word  about 
compounds  as  yet.  Take  such  Latin  stems  as 
cred  from  credo,  believe,  or  defend  from  de- 
fendo,  defend,  hob  from  Jiabco,  have,  ten  from 
teneo,  hold,  pet  from  peto,  seek,  laud  from 
laudo,  praise,  dubit  from  dubito,  doubt,  and 
others  which  can  readily  be  suggested,  and  see 
to  what  a  wealth  of  language  they  will  lead, 
and  it  all  will  be  language  of  quality,  namely, 


96  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

language  of  good  repute  found  in  books  of 
knowledge  which  must  be  known  and  under- 
stood if  there  is  to  be  any  association  with 
knowledge,  as  it  is  administered  by  the  schools. 

I  need  not  pursue  this  process  further  be- 
cause the  method  has  been  indicated  enough  to 
show  how  the  language  study  unfolds  itself. 
It  follows,  of  course,  that  you  will  have  to 
study  out  some  of  these  things  yourself  and  it 
is  not  unlikely  that  you  will  find  yourself  get- 
ting acquainted  with  what  is  a  new  vocabulary 
to  you,  as  well  as  the  child.  So  far  from  this 
being  a  disadvantage,  I  think  it  a  positive  ad- 
vantage in  some  cases,  because  then  you  will  be 
learning  with  your  child  and  that  simultaneous 
approach  to  the  subject  is  the  most  powerful 
stimulant  of  interest  which  a  child  can  receive. 
Its  analogy  may  be  seen  when  any  child  is  per- 
mitted to  go  into  the  father's  workshop  and 
see  him  doing  things.  Here  you  are  doing 
things  together  and  your  own  interest  is  the 
pledge  to  the  child  that  there  is  something  in- 
teresting presently  to  come  forth. 

What  I  have  already  said  about  synonyms 
will  indicate  the  immense  importance  of  this 
use  of  words  for  language  study.  Generally 
speaking,  the  various  synonyms  of  a  given 
w^ord  merely  represent  the  various  depart- 
ments of  language  in  which  they  are  used,  that 


LANGUAGES  97 

is,  in  science,  in  the  arts,  in  literature,  in  com- 
mon speech  and  the  like.  They  also  generally 
are  divided  into  words  of  Saxon  origin  and 
those  of  classical  origin.  By  this  means  you 
can  very  readily  give  yourself  any  amount  of 
material  for  the  particular  language  you  are 
studying,  but  more  especially  for  Latin,  be- 
cause, as  stated,  Latin  is  the  language  in  which 
education  developed  for  so  many  centuries 
that  it  is  the  base  of  the  scholastic  vocabulary 
which  it  is  your  business  to  teach  the  child  at 
the  earliest  moment. 

It  will  be  found  very  helpful  and  instructive, 
and  as  a  practical  exercise,  very  fertilizing,  to 
take  a  given  word  and  use  its  synonyms  as  in- 
dicating the  general  usage.  Thus  I  have  be- 
fore me  the  word  em'pty;  and  as  sjTionyms  I 
have  void,  vacant,  unoccupied;  then,  unfur- 
nished, unsupplied;  then  again,  destitute,  hare; 
and  again,  hollow,  unsubstantial,  unreal,  vain. 
Waste,  desolate;  then  again,  senseless  and  silhj. 
It  will  be  interesting  to  notice  this  grouping 
and  find  out  the  reason  for  it  and  other  sim- 
ilar grouping  of  synonyms.  By  this  means 
you  will  find  the  leading  ideas  which  have  led 
to  the  grouping  and  discover  once  more  how 
meanings  divide  and  usage  develops. 

All  this  you  will  do  yourself  and  by  usage 
and  illustration  show  the  child  how  the  same 


98  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

meaning  changes  in  its  drpression  when  ap- 
plied to  different  things  and  so  steadily  lead 
upward  from  material  to  spiritual  things  and 
finally  to  pure  ideas  as  such.  You  need  have 
no  fear  as  to  the  possibility  of  all  this,  for  I 
have  done  it  repeatedly.  And  you  will  find  a 
perfectly  astonishing  response,  and  not  a  little 
amusement,  in  the  attempts  to  apply  the  differ- 
ing shades  of  meaning  to  various  objects  in  the 
attempt  to  match  the  thing  with  the  idea. 
But  by  this  process  you  are  building  up  the 
reasoning  power  and  training  linguistic  ob- 
servation. 

Here  again  I  must  return  to  the  Bible  as 
your  best  tool  for  language  training.  For  a 
very  small  sum  you  can  get  copies  of  the  New 
Testament  in  German,  French,  Italian,  or,  in 
fact,  any  other  language.  In  the  use  of  the 
Bible  you  have  an  immense  advantage  because 
there  are  large  portions  of  it  which  most 
people  know,  like  the  Lord's  Prayer,  the 
Twentj^-third  Psalm,  Thirteenth  Chapter  of 
First  Corinthians  and  the  like.  These  you 
will,  of  course,  have  had  the  children  memorize 
in  English,  as  also  many  other  passages  like 
the  Beatitudes  and  the  Decalogue.  The  child 
knowing  these  and  their  meaning  will  find  it 
an  interesting  exercise  to  learn  them  in  various 
languages.     By  the  time  the  child  reads,  the 


LANGUAGES  99 

resemblances  and  differences  linguistically  will 
be  made  available  for  the  eye  as  well  as  for  the 
ear.  You  can  thus  use  at  the  same  time  all  the 
knowledge  thus  acquired  in  English  by  bring- 
ing it  into  the  field  of  the  studj"  of  another 
language.  Take  familiar  stories  like  that  of 
David  and  Goliath,  the  Prodigal  Son,  and 
other  parables  and  stories  of  Old  Testament 
worthies,  and  having  read  them  in  English  re- 
peatedly, which  you  will  do  as  a  matter  of 
English  training,  read  them  also  in  the  partic- 
ular language  which  you  wish  to  emphasize. 
You  may  do  this  by  letting  the  little  learner 
follow  your  reading  in  the  foreign  tongue, 
having  the  English  version  before  him.  By 
and  by  you  will  reverse  this  process,  all  the 
while  noting  how  readily  similar  words  are  rec- 
ognized and  using  your  opportunities  for  mak- 
ing verbal  changes  clear,  and  explaining  the 
manner  in  which  words  change  their  form, 
through  racial  habits  of  speech  and  other  influ- 
ences. 

Your  use  of  the  Bible  in  this  manner  tvill 
have  many  indirect  results  which  are  not  con- 
templated in  the  language  study  itself,  but  it 
will  all  react  upon  this  very  powerfully.  The 
practical  effect,  too,  of  the  use  of  the  Bible  is 
very  great  because  when  you  are  dealing  with 
the   subject   of   Ethics   you    will   have   your 


100  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

material  made  for  you  again,  and  in  this  way 
the  same  ideas  keep  recurring  and  giving  fre- 
quent chances  for  correction,  for  expansion, 
and  for  comparison.  The  Bible  is  the  univer- 
sal text-])ook. 

All  this  will  be  made  more  effective  by  the 
memorizing  of  certain  passages,  either  of  the 
Bible  or  of  the  other  works  read,  not  merely  to 
get  the  vocabulary,  but  also  to  train  the  eye  and 
the  ear  to  the  usage  and  the  position  of  the 
various  words  in  the  language  which  you  are 
studying.  This  can  never  be  taught.  But  it 
can  be  mastered  bj'^  usage  and  usage  alone  per- 
fects it  and  creates  the  feeling  for  it.  Now 
the  memorizing  of  passages  entire,  whether 
Bible  verses,  passages  from  Shakspeare,  from 
German  or  French  poems  and  stories,  creates 
the  sense  of  relation  of  words  in  the  expression 
of  ideas.  Idioms  and  common  conversational 
phrases  help  in  this  matter,  but  in  any  case  in 
addition  to  the  memorizing  of  words  get  the 
memory  trained  in  the  committing  of  entire 
passages.  How  easy  this  is  in  English  we  all 
know  by  the  passages  from  the  Bible  or  Prayer 
Book  which  we  repeat  at  church,  or  the  orders 
of  service  in  other  formal  assemblies.  We 
soon  do  them  mechanically  and  often  even 
without  tliought.  But  this  may  be  done  with 
classical  passages  also.     The  amount  of  neces- 


LANGUAGES  101 

sary  knowledge  for  such  a  performance,  of  the 
grammar  of  a  language,  is  very  slight.  The 
more  the  better  of  course.  But  it  is  a  fact  that 
not  a  few  teachers  of  Latin  insist  that  the  right 
teacher  can  get  to  sight  reading  in  Latin  in  six 
weeks. 

What  I  have  in  mind  is  indicated  in  a  very 
interesting  introduction  to  a  little  book  by  Pro- 
fessor Post  on  Latin  at  Sight, ^  in  which  he 
says:  "The  Roman  boy  grasped  the  thought 
not  by  reasoning  as  to  the  relation  of  the 
clauses,  but  naturally,  that  is  without  con- 
scious reasoning  and  in  tlie  order  of  the  Latin 
words  and  clauses.  We  may  presume  that  he 
did  this,  as  we  ordinarily  do  in  English,  at  first 
sight  or  first  hearing.  For  us  to  learn  to  do 
this  is  harder  than  for  the  Roman — just  as  it  is 
apt  to  be  hard  for  one  to  do  it  in  any  language 
not  his  mother  tongue — because  we  do  not  and 
cannot  acquire  the  necessary  elementary  Latin 
in  the  same  natural  way  in  which  the  Roman 
boy  acquired  his,  for  the  reason  that  no  one  now 
begins  to  study  Latin  until  he  has  passed  the 
age  in  which  a  child  acquires  a  speaking  knowl- 
edge of  his  vernacidar." 

Now  here  you  have  the  key  to  what  you  are 
to  do.  He  says  that  a  child  to-day  usually 
studies  Latin  at  a  period  when  the  acquisitive 

1  Page  13. 


102  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

faculties  have  passed  bej'ond  the  time  at  which 
the  Roman  boy  sets  himself  to  learn  his  mother 
tongue.  That  is  true  and  that  is  the  reason 
why  the  road  is  made  so  needlessly  hard. 
Latin  should  be  studied  early,  very  early. 
And  if  you  begin  in  the  way  I  have  indicated 
at  six,  your  boy  will  read  Latin  easily  and  with 
pleasure  at  the  time  most  children  begin  it. 
It  is  true  that  we  do  not  acquire  the  elementary 
Latin  early  enough,  but  while  we  cannot  do  it 
as  well  as  the  Roman  boy  did  it,  it  is  not  true 
that  we  cannot  do  a  great  deal  more  than  we 
do  and  I  have  shown  you  the  way.  ]\Ioreover 
I  have  proved  that  it  can  be  done. 

But  the  main  contention  here  is  sound:  that 
you  must  come  to  it  naturally,  and  that  natural 
approach  comes  by  taking  the  language 
known,  that  is  English,  and  seeing  and  using 
the  equivalent  in  the  language  you  wish  to 
study.  A  Latin  New  Testament  will  help  in 
this,  also,  though,  of  course,  it  is  very  different 
from  classical  Latin.  But  for  the  purposes 
I  have  in  mind  it  will  naturalize  the  tongue  and 
great  strides  can  be  made  which  will  make  sub- 
sequent progress  much  more  rapid  and  much 
more  satisfactor}\  By  usage  alone  you  ac- 
quire the  sense  of  the  relation  of  words  in 
speech  or  in  writing.  When  you  smile  at  a 
foreigner's  use  of  English,  even  though  his 


LANGUAGES  10$ 

every  word  is  correct,  you  feel  simply  that 
he  has  not  had  the  practice  in  usage  which 
teaches  the  right  order  and  relation  of  the 
words  which  he  knows  perfectly.  Therefore 
have  the  child  memorize  passages  about  all 
sorts  of  things,  passages  from  Caesar,  passages 
from  Virgil,  passages  from  Cicero,  all  of  which 
you  will  first  have  carefully  caused  to  be  mem- 
orized and  understood  in  English.  With  little 
children  this  process  works  wonders  in  the  later 
study  of  the  language.  Sometimes  you  can 
set  easy  poetry  to  simple  tunes  and  sing  them, 
which  makes  a  pleasant  variation,  but  the 
special  thing  to  keep  in  mind  is  to  memorize 
passages  because  these  present  ideas  and  rela- 
tions of  words  together. 

Let  me  at  this  point  once  more  guard  you 
against  letting  this  matter  become  so  formal 
that  it  takes  on  the  aspect  of  a  dry  duty  or  a 
task.  Do  not  stay  long  on  anything  in  tchich 
there  is  no  interest.  Judge  of  the  effective- 
ness of  your  work  by  the  interest  you  excite. 
For  this  reason,  while  you  will  look  at  the  text- 
books again  and  again  to  refresh  and  en- 
lighten yourself,  you  will  put  the  subject 
matter  of  these  books  before  j^our  child 
through  the  medium  of  your  own  under- 
standing rather  than  merely  relocating  what 
the    book    says.     You    will    remember    what 


104  TEACHING  IX  THE  HOME 

I  have  said  about  keeping  within  the  vocabu- 
lary which  you  must  acquire,  as  indeed  there 
is  nothing  else  to  do  under  some  conditions. 
In  our  kindergartens,  for  example,  the  little 
children  talk  about  cubes,  cylinders,  and  the 
like  perfectly  scientific  terms,  because  nobody 
has  been  able  to  corrupt  them  into  something 
which  is  not  scientific.  That  principle  you  will 
never  overlook.  But  at  the  same  time  you  will 
not  become  merely  a  talking  text-booh.  You 
will  know  the  thing  yourself  and  through  the 
medium  of  your  own  understanding  you  will 
teach. 

For  this  reason  you  will  employ  the  mo- 
ments not  formally  given  to  study  if  indeed 
there  is  in  this  entire  method  such  a  thing  as 
what  is  commonly  understood  by  "formal" 
study,  though  it  is  not  less  real  on  that  account, 
in  recapitulation  and  experiment ation.  For 
years,  by  way  of  illustration,  I  went  weekly 
into  a  certain  section  of  an  American  city 
where  there  were  no  English  signs  and  kept 
my  visual  and  other  acquaintance  with  all 
kinds  of  languages  by  studying  out  the  signs, 
^lodernized  and  corrupted  as  the  languages 
often  were,  they  nevertheless  served  the  pur- 
pose very  wtII.  You  may  do  this  while  walk- 
ing with  children  in  reading  signs  in  a  foreign 
tongue,  or  analyzing  names  of  foreign  origin, 


LANGUAGES  105 

in  the  naming  of  common  objects,  in  the  recall- 
ing of  a  favorite  passage  suggested  by  some- 
thing you  see.  These  unofficial  studies  are  not 
the  least  important  of  all.  Every  house  on  the 
street  where  I  live  stands  to  me  for  an  histor- 
ical event  because  I  associate  the  numbers  with 
a  date  that  has  historical  significance. 

For  this  practise  we  have  also  a  most  excel- 
lent authority  not  only  in  the  life  of  Karl 
Witte  but  hardly  less  in  that  of  John  Stuart 
Mill.  In  the  Autobiography  of  the  latter  he 
says:  "My  father's  health  required  consider- 
able and  constant  exercise,  and  he  walked  ha- 
bitually before  breakfast,  generally  in  the  green 
lanes  toward  Ilornsey.  In  these  walks  I  al- 
ways accompanied  him,  and  with  my  earliest 
recollections  of  green  fields  and  wild  flowers  is 
mingled  that  of  the  account  I  gave  him  daily  of 
what  I  had  read  the  day  before.  To  the  best 
of  my  remembrance,  this  was  a  voluntary 
rather  than  a  prescribed  exercise.  /  made 
notes  on  slips  of  p>ciper  while  reading,  and  from 
these,  in  morning  walks,  I  told  the  story  to 
him"  ^  .  .  .  "In  the  course  of  instruction 
which  I  have  partially  retraced,  the  point  most 
superficially  apparent  is  the  great  effort  to 
give,  during  the  years  of  childhood,  an  amount 
of  knowledge  in  what  are  considered  the  higher 

^Autobiography,  p.  7. 


106  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

branches  of  education,  which  is  seldom  ac- 
quired (if  acquired  at  all)  until  the  age  of 
manhood.  The  result  of  the  experiment  shows 
the  ease  with  which  this  may  he  done,  and 
places  in  a  strong  light  the  wretched  waste  of 
so  many  precious  years  as  are  spent  in  acquir- 
ing the  modicum  of  Latin  and  Greek  com- 
monly taught  to  schoolboys ;  a  waste  which  has 
led  so  many  educational  reformers  to  entertain 
the  ill-judged  proposal  of  discarding  these  lan- 
guages altogether  from  general  education.  If 
I  had  been  by  nature  extremely  quick  of  ap- 
prehension or  had  possessed  a  very  accurate 
and  retentive  memory,  or  were  of  a  remarkably 
active  and  energetic  character,  the  trial  would 
not  have  been  conclusive;  hut  in  all  these 
natural  gifts,  I  am  rather  helow  than  ahove 
par;  what  I  could  do  assuredly  coidd  he  done 
hy  any  hoy  or  girl  of  average  capacity  and 
healthy  physical  constitution;  and  if  I  have  ac- 
complished anything,  I  owe  it,  among  other 
fortunate  circumstances,  to  the  fact  that 
through  my  early  training  bestowed  on  me  by 
my  father,  I  started,  I  may  fairly  say,  with  an 
advantage  of  a  quarter  of  a  century  over  my 
contemporaries."  ^ 

I  have  cited  this  passage  at  length,  though 
the  whole  chapter  is  worth  careful  reading  to 

"i-  Autobiography,  p.  30. 


LANGUAGES  107 

reassure  all  my  readers  of  the  great  value  of 
language,  especially  classical  study.  In 
America  there  has  been  for  years  so  strong  a 
movement  against  the  classics  that  many  peo- 
ple who  have  never  thought  the  matter  through 
begin  with  a  prejudice  against  Latin  and 
Greek.  But  nothing,  to  my  way  of  thinking, 
is  so  enriching  and  so  valuable  not  only  for  lit- 
erary equipment  but  hardly  less  so  for  careful 
and  logical  thought  as  classical  training. 
With  the  many  adjuncts  to  such  study  to-day, 
and  the  study  begun  early  in  life,  the  classics 
should  be  a  joy  to  children,  not  a  cross;  and 
where  Mill's  father  had  to  make  his  list  of  "vo- 
cables," that  is,  word-lists,  these  are  now  avail- 
able in  print,  of  almost  every  language  and  the 
young  student  to-day  may  start  a  whole  cen- 
tury in  advance  of  the  child  John  Stuart  JMill 
in  mere  equipment.  The  main  difference  was 
in  the  method  and  the  behef  of  the  elder  JNIill 
in  the  training  of  his  boy  and  his  giving  himself 
to  it.  In  this  same  chapter,  Mill  says  that  his 
father  believed  that  he  was  better  off  without 
many  youthful  associates,  because  by  this 
means  he  was  saved  from  vulgarisms  and  from 
the  lowering  of  his  own  habits  and  standards. 
In  a  general  way  I  believe  this  principle  also 
sound,  and  for  this  reason  the  careful  guard- 
ianship of  associations  is  most  important.     But 


108  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

that  is  another  matter.  Just  now  I  wish  to  im- 
press the  fact  that  it  was  by  language  study — 
keen  insight  into  the  use  of  words,  distinctions 
of  usage,  definition  and  area  of  application, 
there  was  developed  one  of  the  most  logical 
thinkers  of  whom  we  have  any  record.  Mr. 
Mill  also  thought  that  this  was  vastly  better 
for  him,  when  applied  to  the  study  of  logic, 
than  the  study  of  mathematics  because  "in 
mathematical  processes  few  of  the  real  difficul- 
ties of  correct  ratiocination  occur."  This  ac- 
cords perfectly  with  President  Eliot's  opinion 
and  should  cause  all  parents  to  place  special 
and  peculiar  emphasis  on  language,  words  and 
their  uses,  clearness  in  expression,  and  this  will 
be  best  done  by  the  collateral  use  of  one  or 
more  languages.  Where  the  language  is  so 
composite  as  English  this  is  not  only  desirable ; 
it  is  absolutely  necessary. 

The  spirit,  in  which  all  that  has  been  indi- 
cated in  this  chapter  is  to  be  done  may  well  be 
illustrated  by  liberal  quotations  from  another 
lover  of  literature,  and  an  especial  lover  of 
Greek.  \^niat  he  says  about  Greek,  in  the  es- 
say from  which  I  quote,  may  with  suitable  vari- 
ations be  applied  to  any  language.  It  is  An- 
drew Lang's  Homer  and  the  Study  of 
Greek.  He  says:  "Philology  might  be  made 
fascinating;  the  history  of  a  word,  and  the 


LANGUAGES  109 

process  by  which  its  different  forms,  in  differ- 
ent senses,  were  developed  might  be  made  as 
interesting  as  any  other  story  of  events.  But 
grammar  is  not  taught  thus:  boys  are  intro- 
duced to  a  jargon  about  matters  meaningless 
and  they  are  naturally  as  much  enchanted  as 
if  they  were  listening  to  a  chimaera  homhinans 
in  vacuo.  The  grammar,  to  them,  is  a  mere 
buzz  in  a  chaos  of  nonsense.  They  have  to 
learn  to  buzz  by  rote;  and  a  pleasant  j^rocess 
that  is — a  seductive  initiation  into  the  myster- 
ies. .  .  .  Our  grammar  was  not  so  philologi- 
cal, abstruse  and  arid  as  the  instruments  of  tor- 
ture employed  at  present.  .  .  .  We  fortu- 
nately had  a  teacher  who  was  not  wildly  enthu- 
siastic about  grammar.  He  would  set  us  long 
pieces  of  the  Iliad  or  Odyssey  to  learn,  and, 
when  the  day's  task  was  done,  would  make  us 
read  on  adventuring  ourselves  in  "the  unseen" 
and  construing  as  gallantly  as  we  might  with- 
out grammar  or  dictionary.  On  the  following 
day  we  surveyed  more  carefully  the  ground 
we  had  skirmished  over,  and  then  advanced 
again.  .  .  .  The  result  was  not  the  making  of 
many  accurate  scholars,  though  a  few  were 
made;  others  got  nothing  better  than  enjoy- 
ment in  their  work,  and  the  firm  belief,  op- 
posed to  that  of  most  schoolboys,  that  the  an- 
cients did  not  write  nonsense."  .  .  . 


110  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

"Judging  from  this  example,  I  venture  very 
humbly  to  think  that  any  one,  who,  even  at  the 
age  of  Cato,  wants  to  learn  Greek,  should  be- 
gin where  Greek  literature,  where  all  profane 
literature  begins — with  Homer  himself.  It 
was  thus,  not  with  grammars  in  vacuo,  that 
the  great  scholars  of  the  Renaissance  began. 
It  was  thus  that  Ascham  and  Rabelais  began, 
by  jumping  into  Greek  and  splashing  about 
till  they  learned  to  swim.  First,  of  course,  a 
person  must  learn  the  Greek  characters. 
Then  his  or  her  tutor  may  make  him  read  a 
dozen  lines  of  Homer,  marking  the  cadence,  the 
surge  and  thunder  of  the  hexameters — a  music 
which,  like  that  of  the  Sirens,  few  can  hear 
without  being  lured  into  the  seas  and  isles  of 
song.  Then  the  tutor  might  translate  a  pas- 
sage of  moving  interest,  like  Priam's  appeal 
to  Achilles;  first  of  course  explaining  the  sit- 
uation. Then  the  teacher  might  go  over  some 
lines,  minutely  pointing  out  how  the  Greek 
words  are  etymologically  connected  with  many 
words  in  English.  Next  he  might  take  a  sub- 
stantive and  a  verb,  showing  roughly  how  their 
inflections  arose  and  were  developed,  and  how 
they  retain  forms  in  Homer  which  do  not  oc- 
cur in  later  Greek.  There  is  no  reason  why 
even  this  part  of  the  lesson  should  be  uninter- 
esting.    By  this  time  the  pupil  would  know, 


LANGUAGES  111 

more  or  less,  where  he  was,  what  Greek  is,  and 
what  the  Homeric  poems  are  like.  He  might 
thus  believe  from  the  first  that  there  are  good 
reasons  for  knowing  Greek,  that  it  is  the  key 
to  many  worlds  of  life,  of  action,  of  beauty,  of 
contemplation,  of  knowledge."  ^ 

You  may  not,  of  course,  do  all  this  with  little 
children,  and  every  language  has  not  a  Ho- 
mer; but  every  language  has  its  great  lit- 
erary figures  and  masterpieces,  and  you  may 
do  as  much  or  as  little  as  you  are  capable  of 
doing  or  make  yourself  capable  of  doing.  But 
in  the  spirit  portrayed  here,  and  with  the  en- 
thusiasm which  should  be  yours  as  the  custo- 
dian of  your  child's  intellectual  future,  who 
can  say  what  you  may  not  do? 

1"  Essays  in  Little,"  pp.  80-83. 


CHAPTER  V 

GEOGRAPHY 

Geography  is  one  of  the  studies  that  should 
be  among  the  first  entered  upon  in  the  instruc- 
tion of  Httle  children.  The  reason  for  this  is, 
that  geography  offers  so  many  opportunities 
for  utilizing  all  the  child's  poicers  effectively  at 
the  same  time.  Through  the  use  of  maps,  it 
uses  and  trains  the  eyes,  through  the  use  of 
blocks  or  dissected  maps  it  trains  the  hands 
and  the  memory,  and  through  its  natural  join- 
ing with  history,  manners,  travels,  pictures, 
and  literature,  there  is  almost  no  subject  that 
cannot  be  touched  upon  in  the  teaching  of  this 
science.  Handled  with  even  a  moderate  de- 
gree of  skill,  it  may  make  the  whole  course  of 
geography  as  taught  in  the  grades  needless. 
The  materials  necessary,  too,  are  so  simple  and 
so  easily  obtainable  that  it  is  not  strange  that 
the  globe  was  found  in  every  library,  and  is 
found  now  in  almost  every  modern  home.  It 
lends  itself  readily  to  the  teaching  of  the  ele- 
ments of  geometry  and  geology  also,  and  these 
will  be  discussed  a  little  later  on.     It  is  the  all- 

112 


GEOGRAPHY  113 

inclusive  study,  because  it  is  a  study  of  the 
earth's  surface  in  the  first  instance,  and  by  nat- 
ural association  the  study  of  everything  on  the 
earth's  surface.  That  includes  pretty  much 
everything. 

But  there  is  a  reason  for  the  early  use  of 
geography,  which  is  much  more  far  reaching 
even  than  the  inclusive  character  of  the  subject. 
And  this  is,  that  it  is  the  best  science  for  illus- 
trating and  embodying  what  Herbart  calls  the 
four  moments  of  instruction,  namely,  the  mo- 
ment to  sliow,  the  moment  to  associate,  the  mo- 
ment to  teach,  the  moment  to  iMosopJiize. 
These  constitute,  according  to  this  educator, 
the  four  steps  in  instruction,  and  geography 
lends  itself  most  readily  to  them,  and  makes 
it  easy  to  learn  the  manner  and  method  of  suc- 
cessful teaching.  There  is  almost  nothing 
that  you  cannot  teach  under  this  heading. 
You  may  take,  for  example,  your  own  sur- 
roundings, your  own  city,  county,  state,  or 
country,  and  beginning  with  this  you  can  roam 
over  the  whole  of  creation,  coming  back  home 
whenever  it  is  convenient  to  do  so.  You  can 
bring  to  your  aid  the  numberless  works  of 
travel,  of  all  kinds;  those  which  have  pictorial, 
those  which  have  historical,  and  those  which 
have  biographical  interest.  You  can  deal 
with  the  manners,  habits,  customs,  religion,  or 


114  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

what  not,  of  any  nation  or  race  under  the  heav- 
ens. You  can  deal  with  the  fauna,  the  flora, 
of  any  region,  and  what,  with  plants  and  ani- 
mals of  the  innumerable  varieties,  you  can 
make  any  region  in  the  world  alive  and  full  of 
interest.  On  the  other  hand,  you  can  deal 
with  its  physical  features,  its  mountains,  its 
valleys,  its  earthquakes,  its  glaciers,  its  forests, 
its  gold  mines,  its  diamond  mines,  and  fill  the 
mind  with  an  endless  procession  of  wonderful 
things,  and  all  the  while  you  can  point  at  the 
precise  spot  where  all  this  happens! 

Then  again,  through  this  gate  you  can  come 
to  governments,  laws,  and  all  manner  of  racial 
and  national  questions.  Indeed,  there  is  no 
limit.  Through  photographs,  very  cheap  and 
easily  obtainable,  you  can  make  any  country 
you  wish  so  vivid  that  the  child  will  never  for- 
get it,  and  what  it  stands  for,  and  you  can 
choose  what  it  shall  stand  for,  in  the  child's 
mind.  If  you  want  to  go  into  the  economic 
side  of  geography,  you  can  teach  what  it  pro- 
duces, and  what  it  does  with  it,  to  whom  it  sells, 
from  whom  it  buys,  and  so  on  almost  without 
end.  I  merely  suggest  these  things  out  of  the 
thousands  of  things  that  suggest  themselves, 
as  showing  what  can  be  done  with  geography 
if  you  go  about  it  with  any  sense  of  what  it 
contains.     Think  of  all  there  is  to  tell  about. 


GEOGRAPHY  115 

in  the  ordinary  adult's  mind,  from  the  North 
Pole  to  Patagonia !  Think  of  the  fascinations 
of  the  Arctic  Zone.  Think  of  those  of  the  Tor- 
rid Zone !  And  think  of  all  that  lies  between ! 
Just  turn  to  Prescott's  History  of  Peru  or 
Mexico,  and  see  if  you  can  find  anything  more 
interesting  in  this  wide  world  to  tell  children 
than  the  stories  of  the  Incas,  or  the  JNIontezu- 
mas  and  their  destruction  by  Pizarro  and  Cor- 
tez!  Selected  portions  from  these  two  works 
will  make  Peru  and  Mexico  forever  interest- 
ing to  the  child  that  hears  them.  But  you  can 
do  the  same  thing  with  almost  any  other  por- 
tion of  the  earth's  surface.  Geographij  should 
he  the  child's  'wonderland. 

But  contemporary  geography  is  hardly  less 
interesting.  Think  what  an  education  the 
whole  world  is  getting  at  this  very  moment, 
in  the  geography  of  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa, 
through  the  thrilling  events  of  the  gi'eat  war! 
Here  is  a  struggle  that  is  exciting  world  inter- 
est, and  every  morning  brings  fresh  news 
and  fresh  happenings  from  every  quarter 
of  the  globe.  Now  it  is  a  battle  of  Chili, 
then  one  off  the  Falkland  Islands,  then  it 
is  a  battle  in  Persia  or  Turkey  or  South 
Africa,  to  say  nothing  of  the  thrilling  events 
in  Belgium,  France  and  Poland.  What 
possible    material    could    be    better    than    to 


116  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

take  these  ordinary  every-day  events,  and 
fix  them  in  the  mind  of  the  child  now,  events 
that  in  ten  or  twenty  years  will  be  history! 
But  it  is  not  alone  the  interest  of  the  land  and 
the  people,  but  the  opportunity  for  learning 
what  is  going  on  in  the  world,  and  how  the 
world  behaves,  and  what  motives  are  govern- 
ing it,  and  whether  these  motives  are  good  ones 
or  bad  ones.  Probably  more  people  are  get- 
ting instruction  in  geography,  of  which  they 
have  never  known  anything  before,  than  at 
any  time  in  the  previous  history  of  the  world. 
But  they  are  getting  all  the  hy-yroducts 
of  that  geographical  knoidedge.  They  are 
learning  about  buildings,  ancient  and  mediae- 
val art,  through  cathedrals  and  pubhc  architec- 
ture and  old  world  structures,  of  which  they 
previously  knew  nothing.  Then  again,  they 
are  learning  about  habits  and  national  charac- 
teristics of  the  great  powers  of  the  world  as 
they  never  knew  them  in  their  lives  before. 
And  they  are  learning  it  concretely,  through 
the  maps  that  almost  every  metropolitan  daily 
prints.  Think  of  the  material  accessible  in 
this  fashion  that  only  a  f ew^  years  ago  was  not 
even  obtainable  except  at  a  great  cost!  But 
this  can  be  done  also  with  ancient  lands  and 
peoples.  There  is  something  going  on  all  the 
time  in  some  part  of  this  old  earth,  wliich  is 


GEOGRAPHY  117 

full  of  human  interest.  Geography  is  the 
basal  science  through  which  all  these  things  are 
understood,  because  it  localizes  them.  You 
can  point  to  the  spot  and  say,  "There  is  the 
place,"  and  that  goes  a  great  way  toward  in- 
tegrating it  permanently  in  the  mind.  The 
mere  color  scheme  of  maps,  in  this  way,  is  a 
kind  of  education. 

Notice  again,  the  personalities  that  are  en- 
gaged in  this  great  struggle.  Here  are  the 
men  whose  names  will  live  in  the  history  of  the 
world,  and  will  be  talked  about  when  the  child 
of  to-day  is  a  man,  even  an  old  man.  Just  as 
the  mature  people  of  to-day  are  talking  about 
Lincoln,  Grant,  Sherman,  Sheridan,  Sumner, 
Garrison,  John  Brown,  and  the  host  of  the  fig- 
ures of  our  Civil  War  period,  so  twenty  or 
thirty  years  hence  they  will  be  talking  about 
Kaiser  Wilhelm  II,  Gen.  Joffre,  Gen.  Von 
Hindenburg,  JNIr.  Asquith,  Winston  Churchill, 
the  Grand  Duke  Nicholas,  and  a  multitude  of 
others.  All  this  will  come  in  naturally  in  dis- 
cussing the  mere  geography  of  the  war  and 
its  stirring  events.  ^Vnd  if  with  all  this,  we 
include  the  innumerable  writings  of  the  Ger- 
man professors,  the  English  professors,  and 
the  American  professors,  who  have  spoken  or 
written  about  the  war,  what  a  vista  is  opened ! 
It  is  not  to  be  supposed  the  child  can  take  in 


118  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

the  full  significance  of  all  this,  of  course.  But 
it  can  learn  the  names  and  master  some  of  the 
connections,  and  that  is  a  great  deal. 

But  what  seems  to  me  even  more  important, 
think  of  the  public  documents  that  are  heing 
made  accessible,  just  for  the  labor  of  picking 
them  up.  The  official  documents  like  the 
White  papers,  the  Yellow  papers,  and  the  offi- 
cial statements  of  the  various  governments, 
there  you  have  the  raw  material,  from  the 
study  of  which  many  an  historian  of  the  future 
will  write  the  text-books  which  these  very 
babies  of  to-day  will  have  to  study.  Think  of 
the  interest  and  pleasure  they  will  have  when 
they  come  to  some  citation,  and  remember  to 
have  heard  it  read  or  discussed  or  even  talked 
about  in  childhood !  There  is  literally  no  limit 
to  this  matter,  when  one  once  gets  a  real  con- 
ception of  how  these  things  are  interlinked  with 
each  other.  In  this  manner,  the  Russo-Turk- 
ish  War  of  1876  was  impressed  upon  my  own 
mind.  So  I  fixed  the  South  African  or  Boer 
War  into  the  minds  of  my  own  children.  So 
the  wise  parent  of  to-day,  the  teaching  father 
or  mother,  will  utilize  the  world's  activities  to 
fertilize,  enrich,  and  occupy  with  real  knowl- 
edge the  child  mind.  The  mere  recital  of  these 
things  makes  the  blood  tingle  and  excites  the 
imagination. 


GEOGRAPHY  119 


The  visible  symbol  of  geography  is  a  map 
or  a  globe,  or  both.  Under  such  a  review  of  the 
subject  as  I  have  described,  it  signifies  world 
life.  "Everywhere  there  is  life,  life  full  and 
free,  everywhere  delight  in  beholding  the  mul- 
titude of  scenes  which  are  unfolding  them- 
selves before  the  child."  Get  a  large  map  of 
the  world,  and  hang  it  where  it  meets  the  eye 
most  frequently.  Ours  hung  in  the  dining 
room,  and  was  made  most  use  of  at  meal  times, 
chiefly  because  that  was  the  time  we  were  all 
together,  and  the  meal  hour  w^as  usually  the 
instruction  hour.  But  hang  it,  in  any  case, 
where  it  is  easily  accessible  and  where  the 
forms  of  the  continents  and  the  various  lands 
are  easily  and  readily  seen,  and  where  the  child 
will  be  soon  accustomed  to  think  of  the  size  and 
shape  of  the  various  portions  of  the  earth's  sur- 
face. Always  use  a  map,  and  whatever  the 
subject  you  happen  to  be  discussing,  use  the 
map,  because  it  objectifies  what  you  are  talk- 
ing about,  and  makes  the  question  and  answer 
method  easy  and  simple.  It  also  stimulates 
the  imagination  and  provokes  reflection  upon 
the  things  seen  and  handled,  as  it  were,  in  this 
way.  3Iap  instruction  is  always  concrete. 
In  presenting  the  physical  aspects  of  geog- 


120  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

raphy,  for  instance,  land  and  water  are  always 
before  the  child.  Soon  mountains  and  valleys 
are  taken  for  granted.  Soon  also  rivers  and 
river  basins  are  differentiated.  Take  the  fa- 
miliar ones  of  our  own  country  and  familiar- 
ize the  child  with  them,  through  stories  about 
them  and  their  discovery.  Thus  about  the 
Mississipi^i,  tell  the  stories  of  the  early  explor- 
ers. Here  is  a  rich  field  for  literary  lore 
and  interesting  facts.  JNIost  early  discovery 
followed  the  rivers,  because  it  was  the  easiest 
form  of  travel.  As  you  come  to  particular 
points,  pause,  and  tell  about  them,  and  then 
have  the  child  try  to  do  the  same  thing.  It 
will  be  found  rare  sport  for  him  and  for  you! 
Or  start  at  any  well-known  point  and  make  all 
sorts  of  excursions  from  it.  But  get  the 
gi-eater  things  first,  and  then  gradually  take 
in  the  more  specific  and  lesser  points  and  di- 
visions. Trace  the  mountain  system  around 
the  whole  earth.  Pause  long  enough  at  va- 
rious stations  at  things  of  interest,  and  make 
the  journey  a  sort  of  pictorial  tour.  Plenty 
of  material  for  this  purpose  is  easily  to  be  had. 
After  the  great  divisions  have  been  clearly 
outlined,  take  particular  countries,  and  get 
your  material  about  them  together,  and  take 
them  in  detail.  Your  only  trouble  will  be 
that  you  won't  be  able  to  deal  with  all  that  you 


GEOGRAPHY  121 

have  to  give,  because  you  will  be  led  along  into 
all  sorts  of  side  inquiries  about  them,  and  their 
people,  and  their  natural  history  and  phenom- 
ena. This  is  really  i^hilosophhing  about  these 
lands  and  should  be  encouraged.  When  you 
can,  use  some  extract  from  literature  in  con- 
nection with  it,  as  when  in  Spain,  and  talking 
about  the  Alhambra,  have  a  picture  of  it,  and 
read  some  selection  from  Washington  Irving's 
volume  on  that  wonderful  palace.  So  with 
other  places  and  countries.  But  always  be 
pictorial,  concrete,  fastening  on  something 
particular  and  interesting.  "Interest,"  says 
Compayre,  "is  the  liking  one  may  conceive  for 
a  thing,  and  that  causes  one  to  take  pleasure 
in  it.  To  interest  is  to  arouse  the  hunger  of 
the  intellect.  Let  us  mark  well  that  its  aim  is 
not  to  amuse  or  divert  and  make  teaching  into 
play.  .  .  .  Interest,  as  Herbart  understood 
it,  is  at  once  the  characteristic  of  things  which 
captivates  the  attention,  and  a  feeling  of  cu- 
riosity, of  alertness  and  activity  of  intellect 
manifested  in  the  mind.  ...  It  is  interest 
which  is  the  spring  of  mental  activity,  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  intellectual  life."  ^ 

Take  time  enough  to  arouse  this  kind  of  in- 
terest. Do  not  let  it  get  to  be  mere  diversion 
or  amusement,  though  it  may  have  this  ele- 

1  Compayr<5,  Herbart,  p.  IS. 


122  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

ment,  too.  But  keep  to  tlie  facts,  and  keep 
to  the  principle  that  you  are  deahng  with 
knowledge,  and  that  it  is  not  less  knowledge, 
because  it  is  highly  colored  and  interest- 
ing knowledge.  Whenever  it  is  possible  to 
link  such  information  to  something  that 
relates  to  childhood,  do  that,  as  the  com- 
parison of  the  child's  own  life  with  the  life  of 
childhood  in  some  other  time  or  country  or 
historical  epoch.  The  social  life  of  various 
countries  may  thus  be  made  the  subject  of  in- 
numerable interesting  lessons  and  informing 
talks.  But  don't  do  it  all  yourself.  Let  the 
child  do  as  much  of  it  as  you  can  get  him  to  do. 
If  you  can  bring  to  this  kind  of  teaching  ob- 
jects of  one  kind  and  another  illustrative  of 
the  thing  you  are  teaching,  so  much  the 
better.  Blank  maps  are  easily  obtainable, 
whereby  children  can  be  given  the  specific 
hand-work  of  coloring  maps  after  the  pattern 
of  the  large  map  before  them.  That  often 
gives  relief  and  supplies  "rest  work"  from 
thinking  too  consecutively.  In  fact,  in  this 
matter  children  can  do  what  most  freshman  do 
in  college  in  historj^  courses,  in  fixing  histori- 
cal geography.  Sometimes  it  may  be  inter- 
esting to  take  a  single  country,  like  France, 
and  show  how  often  it  has  changed  shape  un- 
der different  rulers.     All  this  will  visualize  all 


GEOGRAPHY  12S 

the  time,  the  land  and  its  meaning,  and  its  his- 
tory, but  the  thing  for  this  period  you  must 
keep  in  mind  is  the  geographical  interest. 
Indeed,  in  all  the  various  studies  the  period 
for  any  one  study  is  simply  the  temporary 
emphasis  upon  that  portion  of  it,  rather  than 
upon  some  other,  instead  of  being  an  entirely 
different  subject.  Thus  the  knowledge  be- 
comes coordinated  knowledge,  and  all  things 
are  seen  to  be  linked  with  one  another. 

Trace  out  from  time  to  time,  the  great  voy- 
ages of  the  discoverers,  like  Columbus,  Ves- 
pucci, Magellan,  and  others.  Take  trips 
from  one  point  on  the  globe  to  another,  and 
take  in  the  interesting  things  on  the  way. 
After  reasonable  familiarity  with  this  on  the 
plane  map,  do  it  with  the  globe,  and  open  up 
the  subject  of  the  sphericity  of  the  earth. 
More  about  this  when  we  come  to  the  study  of 
geometry  and  other  applied  mathematics. 
But  already  you  can  point  out  what  the  sj^her- 
icity  of  the  earth  does,  as  to  distances,  and 
trade  routes,  and  tlie  like.  You  can  show 
what  canals  have  done,  the  Suez  and  the  Pan- 
ama and  the  Kiel  Canal,  and  others.  This 
opens  up  a  fresh  and  vast  chapter  of  material, 
which  will  at  once  occur  to  every  mature 
mother  or  fatlier.  But  don't  come  to  any- 
tliing  suddenly  and  without  context.     Lead 


121  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

from  one  thing  to  another,  the  simple  things 
first,  those  biggest  and  most  easy  of  under- 
standing and  differentiation,  and  the  more 
complex  later  on.  You  are  not  giving  a  mass 
of  fragments  unrelated  to  each  other.  You 
are  teaching,  in  a  connected  way,  the  science  of 
geography.  Never  let  that  fact  get  away 
from  you.     This  is  a  fundamental  principle. 

II 

Names  should  figure  largely  in  your  teach- 
ing of  geography.  Have  you  ever  thought 
that  the  whole  world's  life,  and  much  of  its  his- 
tory, politics,  and  civilization,  has  turned  on 
names?  I  hope  I  need  not  tell  you  what  you 
can  do  when  you  come  to  the  great  names  of 
the  world  capitals,  like  Rome,  Athens,  Paris, 
Vienna,  Berlin,  London,  St.  Petersburg,  or 
Petrograd,  as  we  shall  hereafter  have  to  say, 
and  others.  Here  your  work  is  cut  out  for 
you,  because  there  is  so  much  of  history,  art, 
science  and  the  rest  suggested  merely  by  the 
simple  name.  Just  to  tell  the  story  of  these 
cities  with  pictures,  photographs,  and  the  like, 
is  to  open  a  whole  new  world  to  any  child. 
But  just  now  you  are  teacliing  their  geograph- 
ical location  and  position  in  the  world.  Show 
their  relation  to  the  sea  and  the  great  roads  of 
travel.     Work  out  for  yourself  why  they  are 


GEOGRAPHY  125 

where  they  are,  rather  than  somewhere  else. 
But  it  is  hardly  less  interesting  to  take  them 
up  from  the  linguistic  point  of  view.  Person- 
ally we  have  found  linguistic  geography  the 
most  interesting  of  all.  Take,  for  example, 
a  name  like  Lincoln,  which  is  really  Lin- 
colonia,  and  in  England  marks  the  site  of 
a  Roman  colony.  Take  the  names  that  end 
in  hurg,  which  really  means  a  fortified  place, 
and  work  out  why.  Look  up  in  any  encyclo- 
pa?dia  the  history  of  names,  and  you  will  find  a 
mine  of  information  both  for  yourself  and  the 
child.  In  a  country  like  ours,  the  history  of 
Indian  names  is  full  of  interest.  Or,  point  out 
that  all  cities  that  end  in  ville  the  termination 
comes  from  the  French,  which  means  city  or 
town.  Or  those  which  end  in  poUs,  which  is  the 
Greek  word  for  city,  like  Indiana -y^o//*  or  INIin- 
nesL-poIis.  Or,  if  you  want  to  dip  into  ecclesi- 
astical history,  take  the  names  of  cities  that  are 
named  after  saints,  like  St.  Louis,  St.  Paul, 
St.  Joseph,  or  St.  (San)  Francisco.  Trace 
out  the  history  of  the  names  in  your  own  vicin- 
ity, and  find  out  by  way  of  illustration  that 
Danvers,  JNIass.,  is  really  D'Anvers,  the 
French  form  of  Antwerp.  This  is  the  way 
President  AVliite  first  interested  the  students 
of  JNIichigan  University  in  the  study  of  history 
with  some  most  astonishing,  and  often  amus- 


12fl  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

ing,  results.  Almost  any  locality,  in  this  way, 
can  be  made  the  beginning  of  very  interesting 
and  fruitful  investigations. 

This  is  especially  true  when  you  are  deal- 
ing with  Old  World  names,  almost  all  of 
which,  especially  the  Asiatic,  have  some  spe- 
cial significance.  Find  out  why  you  sing  in 
your  hymn  book  about  "Araby  the  Blest." 
Compare  the  Straits  of  Bah-el  Mandeb  with 
Bah-e\.  Take  some  of  the  commoner  names, 
and  trace  them  to  their  origin,  and  you  will  have 
amusement  and  instruction  made  to  order  for 
you.  Almost  any  gazetteer  of  names  or  ency- 
clopaedia will  give  you  these  facts  in  great  abun- 
dance. Everything  is  raw  material  for  your 
own  assimilation,  and  then  for  the  fertilization 
of  your  child's  mind.  The  older  the  names 
are,  the  more  interesting  they  are,  because  in 
the  youth  of  the  race  this  was  the  simplest  way 
of  fixing  anything  in  the  mind  and  conscious- 
ness of  the  people  most  interested.  Thus  you 
can  infer  that  Heliopolis  was  the  site  of  a  gi-eat 
temple  of  the  sun,  when  you  remember  that 
lielios  is  the  Greek  word  for  sun  and  jwlis 
means  city.  Still  in  Egypt,  Ihik  Alexandria 
with  its  founder  and  you  open  the  whole  sub- 
ject of  Alexander,  his  conquests  and  life,  and 
make  it  concrete  with  the  existing  city  of  to- 
day.    Many  names  in  themselves  tell  a  story 


GEOGRAPHY  127 

of  absorbing  interest.  Where  the  name  is 
linked  with  a  personahty,  make  the  hnkage 
clear,  and  use  it  again  when  you  come  to  study 
history.  But  just  now  you  are  teaching  geog- 
raphy; keep  that  in  mind  and  keep  the  physi- 
cal relation  in  the  foreground  of  your  teaching 
and  talk. 

You  will  find  the  Bible  specially  rich  in  this 
sort  of  thing,  because  almost  every  Bible  name 
has  some  significance,  which  is  supposed  to  be 
derived  from  the  circumstances  surrounding 
its  foundation.  Thus  Kiriath  Sepher  indi- 
cates that  it  was  the  seat  of  a  library  which  is 
now  lost,  because  it  means  Book  City.  Let 
nothing  of  this  sort  get  by  you,  as  you  go 
along.  As  you  travel  over  the  continents,  no- 
tice these  things  and  jot  them  down  for  your 
own  investigation,  and  you  will  be  surprised 
how  much  use  you  will  make  of  them.  The 
whole  history  of  the  ancient  religions  can  be 
reconstructed,  ahnost,  from  the  surviving 
names  of  the  deities,  and  a  good  deal  of  the 
same  sort  of  thing  can  be  done  for  nations 
through  the  names  of  their  principal  places. 

Geographical  teaching  should  always  be 
vivid,  picturesque,  and  exact.  You  can  make 
as  much  of  a  "story"  of  it  as  you  please,  pro- 
vided you  are  always  exact  about  it.  This 
is  of  very  great  importance,  because  unless 


128  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

you  are  exact,  you  will  mix  things  up  in  the 
young  mind  and  simply  get  a  great  mass  of 
blurred  impressions.  Don't  leap  too  far  at  a 
single  jump.  Tell  things  slowly,  and  see  to 
it  that  the  things  are  connected  distinctly  with 
the  time,  place  and  circumstances  of  the  geo- 
graphical knowledge  which  you  wish  to  teach. 
Always  remember  that  in  the  infant  mind 
there  are  many  latent  forces  to  be  awakened, 
and  it  is  important,  so  to  speak,  that  if  you  are 
to  start  an  electric  current  that  you  touch  the 
right  button.  In  fact,  that  is  the  way  to  think 
about  the  child  mind.  You  are  not  shovelling 
fuel  into  the  mind,  you  are  leading  the  child's 
own  native  mental  energy  to  exert  itself  in  a 
given  direction.  You  are  the  efficiency  engi- 
neer to  see  to  it  that  nothing  is  wasted  and 
that  its  power  is  not  diverted  to  useless  ends. 
Don't  let  the  young  mind  get  sidetracked 
in  mere  minutiae,  however  interesting.  Tim- 
buctoo  is  interesting  but  not  important. 
Rome  is  both  interesting  and  important!  If 
you  happen  to  live  in  Carlinville,  Illinois,  it  is 
worth  while  to  begin  at  Carlinville,  but  don't 
stay  there,  because  the  vast  mass  of  humanit}' 
never  heard  of  it,  and  would  not  be  interested 
in  it  if  they  did.  Stay  with  a  child  by  the 
things  which  are  big  enough  and  full  enough 
of  content  to  make  it  worth  while  to  dwell 


GEOGRAPHY  129 

upon  often,  and  which  yield  something  fresh 
and  new  every  time  you  talk  about  them. 
This  does  not  mean  that  you  are  to  slight  local 
matters,  quite  the  contrary.  It  is  really  to 
give  them  their  true  significance  and  liberate 
the  mind  from  subjugation  to  locality  and  in- 
tellectual provincialism.  A  child  can  be  made 
cosmopolitan  in  thought  much  more  easily 
than  an  adult.  It  has  no  prejudices  already 
formed,  it  has  no  interests  to  subserve,  it  has 
no  violent  dislikes  to  overcome.  Therefore 
seek  to  make  it  cosmopolitan  in  thought  by  ac- 
quainting it  with  the  varieties  of  thought 
which  there  are  in  the  world,  through  the  vari- 
ous peoples  who  inhabit  it. 

Ill 

Natural  phenomena^  plants,  animals,  and 
striking  configurations  should  occup}^  an  im- 
portant place  in  the  teaching  of  geography.  It 
is  not  merely  that  there  shall  be  information 
about  the  plants  and  animals  themselves,  but 
these  become  gradually  the  indices  of  the  lati- 
tudes from  which  they  come.  A  hon,  for  ex- 
ample, should  suggest  an  African  jungle  to  a 
child,  not  an  Arctic  ice  floe!  Here  you  bring 
in  the  principle  of  association  which  helps  very 
much  for  geography,  especially  as  to  fauna 
and  flora.     There  are  tropical  fruits  and  flow- 


ISO  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

ers,  sub-tropical  fruits  and  flowers,  and  fruit 
common  to  temperate  zones.  If  these  are  as- 
sociated in  the  mind  of  the  child  with  the  kind 
of  climate  and  kind  of  temperature  of  the  re- 
spective countries  wliere  they  are  indigenous, 
there  is  a  good  deal  gained  in  the  way  of  geo- 
graphical association.  Thus  the  reading  of 
Kiphng  will  always  associate  elephants  with 
India,  though  they  are  not  confined  to  India. 
But  that  will  open  the  way  to  the  commercial 
question  of  ivory  and  others  of  a  similar  na- 
ture. Lion  hunting  will  visualize  the  jungle 
in  Africa,  as  tiger  hunting  will  visualize  it  in 
the  imagination  with  India.  These  and  such 
like  associations  are  of  very  gi'eat  interest  for 
themselves  and  for  the  study  of  geography. 
Common  objects  in  daily  use  can  be  made  use- 
ful for  study,  in  this  way,  by  tracing  out  the 
country  of  origin,  and  w^here  objects  are 
stamped  ^vith  the  country  of  origin  as  is  now 
required  by  many  countries,  including  our 
own,  there  is  a  new  field  of  interest  opened. 
Flowers  lend  themselves  particularly  to  this 
kind  of  study,  and  have  the  added  use  that 
presently  this  same  information  will  be  used  in 
elementary  studies  in  botany  and  science  gen- 
erally. Wliencver  plants  are  mentioned  in 
reading,  or  foliage,  or  vegetation  of  any  kind, 
it  is  well  to  raise  the  question  of  where  such  a 


GEOGRAPHY  131 

country  naturally  would  be.  Thus  you  intro- 
duce naturally  the  question  of  climate,  fer- 
tility, soil,  and  other  matters.  Geography 
thus  becomes  the  agent  of  teaching,  as  it 
should,  and  as  every  study  should,  something 
beside  itself.  If  an  effort  is  made  at  differen- 
tiating species,  this  is  so  much  additional  gain. 
But  it  will  readily  be  seen  how  things  hang  to- 
gether if  these  things  are  associated  together, 
and  everj'-  fresh  association  of  this  kind  makes 
a  new  peg  for  the  memory  to  hang  upon.  If 
the  geography  is  not  remembered  by  one  thing, 
it  is  remembered  by  another,  and  this  is  the 
soundest  way  of  memorizing  anything,  because 
it  comes  through  association  with  some  kind 
of  permanent  knowledge.  Birds  and  their 
plumage  form  another  attractive  field  for  this 
kind  of  geographical  study.  Just  think  what 
an  instructive  thing  a  visit  to  even  a  very  ordi- 
nary zoological  garden  will  do  in  this  connec- 
tion, and  what  added  pleasure  the  visit  will 
give  if  there  is  brought  to  it  some,  even  slight, 
knowledge  of  what  it  is  expected  will  be  seen. 
The  whole  range  of  the  animal  world  is  thus 
placed  at  the  teacher's  disposal  for  furthering 
a  knowledge  of  the  earth  and  its  structure. 
The  same  is  true  if  particular  mountain  peaks 
or  volcanoes  are  selected  and  made  the  subject 
of  study  and  exposition.     No  child  tliat  has 


152  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

ever  had  the  story  of  the  eruptions  of  Vesuvius 
or  ]Mt.  Pelee  brought  to  its  attention,  espe- 
cially with  photographs,  will  ever  forget  the 
l)lace  and  the  conditions  and  the  effects  of  such 
eruptions. 

But  here  again  warning  must  be  given  that 
you  are  not  to  plunge  into  these  things  tvithout 
preparation  for  them.  Before  you  talk  about 
volcanoes,  tell  something  about  the  earth  and 
its  crust  and  its  interior.  Explain  how  much 
knowledge  we  have  about  such  things,  and 
then  show  how  volcanoes,  from  causes  not 
known,  though  they  have  been  extinct  for 
years,  suddenly  become  active.  If  you  tell  the 
story  of  Herculaneum  and  Pompeii  in  this  con- 
nection, and  read  an  appropriate  passage 
from,  let  us  say,  Buhver's  JLast  Days  of 
Pompeii,  you  will  not  only  make  an  impres- 
sion which  will  create  permanent  interest,  but 
you  will  arouse  a  desire  to  investigate  the 
whole  subject,  which  will  lead  you  around  the 
whole  globe.  You  may  find  that  you  have  to 
look  up  and  learn  more  about  volcanoes  than 
you  ever  knew  in  your  own  life  before! 
Which  is  just  as  it  ought  to  be!  But  come  to 
it  gradually  and  by  eas}^  steps,  first  things 
known,  and  then  things  new. 

The  first  question  concerning  any  new  plant 
or  flower  or  animal  should  be  "Where  is  the 


GEOGRAPHY  133 

home  of  this  thing,"  and  sometimes  to  work 
backward  to  it,  from  the  nature  of  the  animal 
itself,  is  very  interesting.  Heavy  fur  usually 
means  one  thing,  light  fur  another.  Some 
kinds  of  teeth  mean  one  thing,  others  another. 
The  habitat  of  animals  generally  shows  what 
they  must  subsist  on,  and  this  in  turn  is  shown 
in  the  tools  they  have  to  work  with.  This 
process  can  be  worked  out  very  well  with  do- 
mestic animals  by  noticing  their  differences, 
and  thus  tracing  out  their  original  homes. 
The  distribution  of  man  throughout  the  earth 
is  similarly  useful  for  its  geographical  content. 
Why  are  races  that  inhabit  certain  portions  of 
the  earth,  as  they  are,  as  distinguished  from 
those  which  we  know  and  see  daily?  This  im- 
mediately again,  raises  the  question  of  the  ef- 
fect of  climate,  food  and  nature  upon  man,  and 
whether  he  makes  his  conditions  or  they  make 
him!  This  question  is  readily  seen  to  be  one 
of  very  large  implications.  Consideration  of 
it  cannot  begin  too  soon. 

Along  with  this,  there  may  be  raised  simple 
questions  in  astronomy.  We  speak  of  the 
"North"  star  and  the  ''Southern'  Cross,  and 
the  like.  Why?  The  study  of  the  heavens 
helps  especially,  as  it  affords  the  easiest  ap- 
proach to  the  story  of  tlie  movement  of  the 
earth  and  the  stellar  bodies.     So  the  question 


184  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

of  tlie  relation  of  the  eartli  to  tlie  sun  and  the 
planets,  and  the  general  development  of  the 
Copernican  hypothesis  is  opened  up.  Inci- 
dentally, the  moon  is  introduced,  and  the 
changes  of  the  moon  and  its  use  as  a  measure 
of  time,  and  the  relation  of  all  this  to  the  sea- 
sons, and  its  significance  to  religious  festivals, 
as  Easter,  and  others,  can  be  shown,  and  this, 
in  turn,  joined  to  the  celebration  of  these  fes- 
tivals in  various  countries,  in  their  various  dif- 
ferent ways.  All  this,  it  will  be  seen,  has  a 
bearing  more  or  less  direct  upon  the  earth  and 
its  surface  and  conditions  and  inhabitants  and 
configurations,  all  of  which  we  call  the  science 
of  geography,  broadly  speaking.  There  is  lit- 
erally no  limit  to  the  amount  one  can  do,  if  the 
way  is  open  and  the  inclination  leads  on.  But 
the  child  so  taught  will  never  find  geography 
tame  or  unpleasing. 

rv 

But  no  study  of  geography  with  children 
will  be  complete  that  does  not  make  large  use 
of  hooks  of  travel.  It  makes  little  difference 
where  you  begin,  after  you  have  a  little  knowl- 
edge of  the  map.  But  such  books  as  Xan- 
sen's  Farthest  North,  or  Livingstone's  Af- 
rica, or  Stanley's  In  Darkest  Africa,  or 
Wright's  Greenland's  Ice  Fields,  or  any  one 


GEOGRAPHY  135 

of  a  thousand  that  could  be  mentioned,  will 
be  found  invaluable.  Any  library  under 
"Travel"  will  give  you  all  the  material  you  can 
possibly  use.  You  need  not  use  all  of  any  one 
book,  but  simply  select  such  as  have  the  ele- 
ment of  picturesqueness  and  vivacity  of  de- 
scription. Often  biographies  will  give  the 
same  result,  especially  if  they  be  biographies 
of  explorers  whicli  add  the  element  of  striking 
personality.  Travellers  usually  try  to  make 
their  stories  interesting,  and  while  they  may 
often  lack  historical  accuracy,  they  answer  for 
your  purpose,  namely,  geograph5\  The 
books  of  Parkman  like  the  Oregon  Trail, 
Conspiracy  of  Pontiac,  Pioneers  of  France 
in  the  New  World,  Count  Frontenac,  and 
others  that  might  be  named,  are  full  of  geo- 
graphical as  well  as  historical  interest.  The 
works  of  Prescott  and  Motley  are  in  the  same 
class.  The  advantage  of  using  books  like 
these,  rather  than  more  modern  ones,  is  that 
they  are  classics  of  their  kind,  and  are  wonder- 
ful models  of  stjde,  as  well  as  of  deep  and  irre- 
sistible attraction.  There  are  innumerable 
books  on  England  and  France  and  New  Eng- 
land, and  the  West,  and  Far  West,  which  may 
be  used.  Almost  any  library  will  have  all  you 
can  possibly  use.  For  Japan,  the  works  of 
William  Elliott  Griffis  will  be  found  unicjue 


186  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

and  full  of  charm.  The  same  author  has  writ- 
ten interestingly,  too,  of  Holland.  Indeed, 
anything  from  this  pen  has  value  for  literary 
form,  for  historical  and  geographical  interest, 
n^ut  I  need  not  enumerate,  because  your 
library  is  at  hand  and  has  them  all. 

Here  again,  do  not  let  the  subject  get  away 
from  you.  You  have  been  talking,  let  us  say, 
about  Holland,  its  location,  and  natural  fea- 
tures, the  dikes  that  keep  out  the  sea,  and  its 
reclamations  from  the  ocean,  and  all  this  should 
be  recalled  when  you  take  up,  say.  Brave  Lit- 
tle Holland,  by  Dr.  GrifRs.  If  you  read 
from  the  Conquest  of  Mexico,  recall  the 
early  discoverers  and  their  story  before  enter- 
ing upon  some  passage  of  interest.  Don't  do 
things  disconnectedly.  Have  a  context  for 
your  story  before  you  begin  it  and  let  it  come 
in  its  proper  place,  first  the  blade,  then  the  ear, 
then  the  full  corn  in  the  ear!  Original  pic- 
tures by  travellers  are  often  of  the  highest 
value,  because  they  are  out  of  the  conventional 
lines  of  illustration.  But  do  not  lose  your 
subject  in  too  many  details.  See  that  the  big 
outlines  are  always  kept  in  mind,  and  don't 
get  lost  in  detail.  In  dealing  with  such  a  book 
as  Amelia  Edwards's  Thousand  Miles  Up 
the  Nile,  you  will  have  many  things  to  linger 
over.     Pass  rapidly  over  those  which  require 


GEOGRAPHY  137 

maturity  and  reflective  capabilities,  and  deal 
with  those  which  have  visual  quality,  which 
suggest  pictures,  and  which  can  readily  be 
comprehended  and  retained. 

Where  it  is  possible  to  consult  relief  maps, 
do  this,  because  this  will  make  things  much 
more  real.  It  will  also  help  for  some  elemen- 
tary studies  in  geology  later  on.  But  let  the 
travellers  tell  their  stories,  and  let  the  interest 
excited  be  the  measure  of  how  long  j'ou  hold 
on  to  a  particular  line.  Never  quite  exhaust 
anything,  so  far  as  interest  is  concerned,  be- 
cause this  makes  it  possible  to  return  to  it. 
But  in  general,  the  narrative  of  a  real  man, 
having  real  experiences,  especially  if  they  be 
of  an  exciting  and  thrilling  nature,  cannot  fail 
to  help  you  in  your  work  for  the  child.  I 
think  it  wise  also,  in  tliis  same  connection,  to 
point  out  that  you  will  often  be  in  danger  of 
having  your  own  interest  so  aroused  in  a  given 
subject  that  you  will  think  because  it  interests 
you  it  must  therefore  also  interest  the  child. 
This  is  not  always  true.  I  have  mj'self  had 
the  experience  of  reading  to  children,  getting 
violently  interested  myself  and  reading  breath- 
lessly on,  only  to  discover  presently,  that 
though  the  children  were  watching  me  cu- 
riously, I  had  gotten  far  beyond  their  depth. 
Read  not  to  them  but  with  them.     Keep  the 


188  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

idea  uppermost  that  you  are  getting  this 
knowledge  with  them  and  that  their  interest 
and  understanding  is  the  paramount  matter. 
In  general,  it  will  he  found  wise  to  keep  to 
groups  in  these  matters.  That  is,  when  deal- 
ing with  Europe,  concentrate  on  the  various 
European  matters.  If  you  are  dealing  with 
Asia,  drop  everything  that  is  not  Asiatic. 
So  while  you  are  dealing  with  matters  Ameri- 
can, let  everything  bear  upon  America.  This 
is  simply  to  avoid  confusion,  but  even  more, 
to  drink  deeply  enough  of  one  thing  at  a  time 
to  prevent  the  matters  from  becoming  simply 
interesting  diversions.  In  general,  keep  along 
with  the  history  you  are  studying,  so  that  these 
things  will  reenforce  each  other.  Then  the 
transition  from  one  to  the  other  will  be  easy 
and  natural,  and  not  abrupt.  You  can  often 
give  the  whole  study  a  local  and  contemporary 
touch,  by  pointing  out  the  various  classes  of 
foreign,  that  is,  non-English-speaking  people, 
in  the  community,  and  awakening  the  liveliest 
interest  in  them  by  discussing  the  country  they 
came  from,  what  they  probably  did  there,  why 
they  left,  and  what  they  are  doing  here,  and 
what  changes  they  must  find  here  as  contrasted 
with  their  native  lands.  That  will  give  a  kind 
of  respect  for  this  class  of  our  fellow  citizens, 
which  has  long  been  wanting  in  American  life. 


GEOGRAPHY  139 

Under  this  view,  an  Italian  won't  be  a  "Dago" 
and  similar  epithets  will  not  easily  be  adopted 
by  the  little  becoming  citizen  of  the  republic! 
Books  of  travel  enlarge  the  mind  and  ex- 
pand the  intellectual  horizon.  Next  to  trav- 
elling itself  they  are  the  best  substitute. 
Many  people  who  have  never  been  able  to 
leave  their  own  firesides  in  the  body,  have,  in 
the  mind  and  imagination,  roamed  all  over 
this  broad  earth,  have  tasted  the  delights  of 
foreign  scenes,  and  had  touch  with  foreign 
peoples,  and  have  learned  how  various  and 
how  wonderful  is  this  thing  we  call  humanity. 
Such  persons  cease  with  this  experience  to 
be  narrow-minded,  because  they  have  been 
abroad.  They  cease  to  be  provincial,  because 
they  become  citizens  of  the  world.  They  get 
that  comparative  view  of  things,  which  makes 
for  tolerance  and  inclusiveness  of  spirit,  which 
is  the  best  result  of  travel.  This  is  what  your 
work  in  geography  mainly  should  do.  It  is 
of  very  little  worth  to  know  the  physical 
boundaries  of  nations,  and  know  nothing  of 
the  nations  thus  bounded.  Humanize  the 
study  in  this  way  at  every  turn.  Try  to  cre- 
ate sympathies  with  the  peoples  thus  studied, 
with  their  conditions,  their  hardships,  and  their 
joys.  This  also  has  high  educational  as  well 
as  spiritual  value,  and  helps  to  create  the  hu- 


140  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

manized  being  you  want  your  child  to  be. 
This  is  the  essence  of  true  culture  as  well. 
Perhaps  this  can  be  indicated  by  a  quotation 
from  Goldsmith's  "Traveller"  as  well  as  any- 
thing. He  is  speaking  of  Switzerland  and 
the  Swiss: 

My  soul  turn  from  tlicni,  turn  we  to  survey 

Where  rouglier  climes  a  nobler  race  display  — 

Where  the  bleak  Swiss  their  stormy  mansions  tread, 

And  force  a  churlish  soil  for  scanty  bread. 

No  product  here,  the  barren  fields  afford 

But  man  and  steel,  the  soldier  and  his  sword; 

No  vernal  blooms  their  torpid  rocks  array. 

But  Winter  lingering,  chills  the  lap  of  May; 

No  zephyr  fondly  sues  the  mountain's  breast, 

But  meteors  glare,  and  stormy  glooms  invest. 

Yet  still,  even  here,  content  can  spread  a  charm 

Redress  the  clime,  and  all  its  rage  disarm. 

Though  poor  the  peasant's  hut,  his  feasts  though  small. 

He  sees  his  little  lot,  the  lot  of  all; 

Sees  no  contiguous  palace  rear  its  head. 

To  shame  the  meanness  of  his  humble  shed; 

No  costly  lord,  the  sumptuous  banquet  deal, 

To  make  him  loathe  his  vegetable  meal ; 

But  calm,  and  bred  in  ignorance  and  toil 

Each  wish  contracting,  fits  him  to  the  soil. 

Cheerful  at  morn,  he  wakes  from  short  repose 

Breasts  the  keen  air  and  carols  as  he  goes; 

With  patient  angle  trolls  the  finny  deep, 

Or  drives  his  venturous  ploughshare  to  the  steep; 

Or  seeks  the  den  where  snow-tracks  mark  the  way. 

And  drags  the  struggling  savage  unto  day. 


GEOGRAPHY  141 

At  night,  returning,  every  labor  sped 
He  sits  him  down  the  monarch  of  a  shed; 
Smiles  by  his  cheerful  fire  and  round  surveys 
His  children's  looks,  that  brighten  at  the  blaze; 
While  his  loved  partner,  boastful  of  her  hoard 
Displays  her  cleanly  platter  on  the  board. 
And  haply  too,  some  pilgrim  thither  led. 
With  many  a  tale,  repays  the  nightly  bed. 

Xot  often  does  descriptive  verse  displaj^  the 
sweet  qualities  of  heart  and  mind  which  are 
found  in  these  hues,  and  the  child  to  whom 
such  verses  are  read  or  to  whom  travel  through 
books  and  imagination  bequeathes  a  similar 
spirit,  is  a  favored  being,  because  sympathetic 
with  the  whole  wide  brotherhood  of  mankind! 


CHAPTER  VI 

HISTORY 

"The  world,"  says  Emerson  in  his  great  es- 
say on  History,  "exists  for  the  education  of 
each  man.  There  is  no  age  or  state  of  society 
or  mode  of  action  in  history  to  which  there  is 
not  somewhat  corresponding  in  his  hfe. 
Everything  tends  in  a  wonderful  manner  to 
abbreviate  itself,  and  yield  its  own  virtue  to 
him.  He  should  see  that  he  can  live  all  his- 
tory in  his  own  person.  He  must  sit  stolidly 
at  home,  and  not  suffer  himself  to  be  bullied 
by  kings  or  empires,  but  know  that  he  is 
greater  than  all  the  geography  and  all  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  world;  he  must  transfer  the 
point  of  view  from  which  history  is  commonly 
read,  from  Rome  and  Athens  and  London,  to 
himself,  and  not  deny  his  conviction  that  he  is 
the  court,  and  if  England  or  Egypt  have  any- 
thing to  say  to  him  he  will  try  the  case ;  if  not, 
let  them  forever  be  silent.  He  must  attain 
and  maintain  that  lofty  sight  where  facts  yield 
their  secret  sense,  and  poetry  and  annals  are 
alike.     The  instinct  of  the  mind,  the  purpose 

142 


HISTORY  143 

of  nature,  betrays  itself  in  the  use  we  make  of 
the  signal  narrations  of  history.  .  .  .  This 
life  of  ours  is  stuck  round  with  Egypt,  Greece, 
Gaul,  England,  War,  Colonization,  Church, 
Court,  and  Commerce,  as  with  so  many  flowers 
and  wild  ornaments,  grave  and  gay.  I  will 
not  make  account  of  them.  I  believe  in  Eter- 
nity. I  can  find  Greece,  Asia,  Italy,  Sj^ain, 
and  the  Islands — the  genius  and  creative  prin- 
ciples of  each  and  all  eras  in  my  own  mind." 
Thus  one  of  the  most  creative  and  inspiring 
souls  that  ever  held  a  pen  approached  the 
study  of  the  world  and  announced  the  leading 
principle  of  worthy  historical  study,  that  it 
must  not  be  viewed  objectively,  but  subjec- 
tively— made  our  own  and  verified  not  merely 
b}^  literature,  but  verified  by  the  experience 
and  thought  of  each  individual  man.  This  is 
what  should  be  kept  constantly  before  the 
mind  in  introducing  the  young  child  to  the 
study,  which  records  the  uses  to  which  the  uni- 
versal mind  has  been  put,  whether  it  be  in  the 
dress  of  Greek  or  Roman,  Italian  or  German, 
whether  embodied  in  a  great  book,  a  great 
cathedral  or  a  great  picture.  Very  beautiful, 
but  very  vague,  you  say.  True  enough,  but 
if  there  is  anything  more  vague  than  history, 
it  would  be  hard  to  know  what  it  is,  unless  it 
is  that  mythical  thing  called  the  Subconscious, 


144  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

wliich  is  j)laying  the  thinking  of  mankind  such 
hilarious  pranks  at  the  present  time.  If  you 
will  take  any  personality,  Cajsar,  Cromwell, 
or  Goethe,  and  collect  the  opinions  and  inter- 
pretations which  have  been  made  of  him,  you 
will  find  yourself  bewildered  at  the  variety  of 
uses  which  may  be  made  of  the  same  facts. 
The  fighting  generals  never  get  through  their 
arguments  as  to  what  actually  occurred  on  any 
battlefield.  The  English  teach  that  Waterloo 
was  won  by  Wellington;  the  Germans  teach 
that  Bliicher  was  responsible  for  the  downfall 
of  Napoleon;  and  as  for  Napoleon  himself, 
well,  only  recently  one  writer  com2:>iled  a  book 
composed  entirely  of  Napoleon's  own  words, 
supposing  probably  that  this  settled  things, 
not  recognizing  that  even  this  involved  the 
writer's  choice  of  material,  and  that  this  selec- 
tion was  only  another  "interpretation!" 

You  will  never  get  the  soul  out  of  history  by 
merely  taking  a  table  of  contents  of  mankind's 
actions,  or  a  chronological  table  of  the  order 
in  which  they  occurred.  Some  people  think 
that  is  history.  But  history  only  really  begins 
when  we  identify  ourselves  with  what  hap- 
pened and  try  to  live  through  the  experiences 
of  the  past  and  get  them  revivified  in  the 
dialect  of  our  o^\ti  experience.  This  is  what 
Emerson  means  when  he  says  that  "we  are 


HISTORY  145 

always  coming  up  with  the  emphatic  facts  of 
history  in  our  private  experience  and  verifying 
them  here."  This  is  not  only  true,  but  they 
are  never  really  verified  until  they  are  verified 
in  the  private  experience.  Viewed  in  this  way, 
history  is  something  fascinating,  thrilling  and 
absorbing.  It  links  you  with  all  the  world, 
because  it  is  all  the  world  in  your  own  terms. 
It  makes  you  fight  with  the  fighters,  love  with 
the  lovers,  suffer  with  the  sufferers,  and  tri- 
umph with  the  victorious.  It  lifts  you  out  of 
the  limitations  of  your  immediate  surroundings 
into  the  area  of  world  life  and  world  events. 
It  makes  your  own  mind  and  emotions  tlie 
center  of  creation.  The  majestic  figures  that 
have  made  the  world's  life  or  marred  it,  are  not 
strangers  they  are  fellow  citizens  of  the  world. 
The  natural  outcome  of  all  this  is  a  sort  of 
comradeship  with  men  and  events.  There 
comes  a  sort  of  identification  with  the  actors  of 
the  world  drama  which  is  like  that  which  you 
experience  at  a  well-acted  play.  When  you  sit 
in  your  darkened  auditorium  and  cry  softly 
over  some  story  that  is  being  enacted  on  the 
stage  yonder,  you  know  perfectly  well  that  it 
is  only  play-acting — but  you  cry,  not  because 
of  the  sorrow  which  is  sham,  but  the  sorrow 
which  is  real  and  which  in  your  own  licart  you 
know  to  exist  somewhere,  and  which  may  be 


146  TKACIIING  IN  THE  HUME 

possible  to  you.  In  other  words  you  idciitif/j 
yourself  with  the  actor  to  the  extent  of  i'eehng 
really  what  very  likely  to  him  is  not  only 
merely  acting  but  even  hard  and  disagreeable 
work.  Are  you  duped  then?  Far  from  it. 
You  are  having  something  which  is  vital  and 
genuine  to  you,  whatever  his  performance  may 
be  to  him.  The  very  greatest  of  all  poets  has 
told  us  that  all  the  w^orld  is  a  stage ;  well,  then, 
since  these  actors  are  here  and  are  giving  you 
their  parts,  observe  them,  feel  with  them,  un- 
derstand them,  if  you  can,  and  let  them  live  in 
you.     That  is  the  way  to  study  history. 

But  you  will  say  to  me  that  this  is  a  mature 
use  of  the  mind  and  not  at  all  possible  to  chil- 
dren. In  fact,  just  the  reverse  is  true.  When 
you  go  to  the  playhouse  how  often  the  best 
efforts  of  the  actor  fail  to  touch  you,  not  be- 
cause the  efforts  are  not  worthy  and  well- 
directed,  but  because  you  are  full  of  your  ware- 
house, your  clothing  and  tin"vvares,  your  leather 
and  wool,  your  law  cases  and  bankruptcies, 
your  pots  and  kettles,  your  dressmaking  and 
your  housekeeping,  and  the  thousand  things 
which  have  gripped  your  life,  and  made  it  hard 
for  you  to  get  out  of  yourself.  Habit  has 
already  made  you  the  slave  to  many  things,  and 
the  task-masters  won't  let  go!  But  the  child 
has  no  such  despots.    His  mind  is  ready  to  play 


HISTORY  117 

with  anybody,  Cleopatra  or  Xero,  Demosthe- 
nes or  Hannibal,  and  only  wants  a  suitable 
introduction  to  make  these  personages  perma- 
nent members  of  his  entourage.  And  curi- 
ously enough  if  you  don't  introduce  them  they 
will  invent  others  to  take  their  places.  Your 
child  is  a  real  world  citizen. 

Then  again  your  emotions  may  be  dulled 
and  you  unable  to  experience  the  great  big 
human  emotion  as  contrasted  with  your  o\mi 
little  Humboldt  Avenue  delusions.  You 
think  in  terms  of  what  Brattle  Street,  or  Chest- 
nut Hill,  think  about  the  matters,  and  feel  with 
the  mob  instinct  of  your  class  and  associates. 
But  the  child,  with  uncorrupted  emotions,  is 
more  democratic  and  more  cosmopolitan.  He 
doesn't  have  to  have  a  tag  attached  to  things 
before  he  knows  how  he  feels  about  them. 
Thc}^  are  interesting  to  him  because  they  are 
human.  He  will,  very  likely,  share  your 
thoughts  and  come  to  new  things  with  some  of 
the  cerements  of  your  narrowness  and  preju- 
dice hanging  to  him,  but,  generally  speaking, 
he  will  accept  any  kind  of  company  and  try  to 
adjust  himself  to  it,  and  it  is  your  business  to 
introduce  him  to  all  kinds  and  varieties.  That 
is  one  of  the  uses  of  history  which  many  stu- 
dents have  not  yet  discovered.  They  still 
think  thev  must  add  a  "moral"  at  the  end  of 


148  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

eacli  tale,  just  as  the  preacher  must  tell  you 
exactly  what  every  text  means.  Well,  the 
preacher  does  not  know  what  every  text  means, 
and  you  do  not  know  what  the  real  character  of 
the  famous  personages  of  the  world's  life  was, 
except  by  fragmentary  and  often  misleading 
accounts.  Therefore  let  them  tell  their  own 
story,  and  let  the  child  try  out  his  mind  and 
feelings  together,  as  each  one  unfolds  himself 
before  him,  through  the  medium  of  your  read- 
ing or  teaching.  You  will  then  see  how 
uncorrupted  emotion  works,  in  the  pres- 
ence of  things  which  seem  to  you  stale  and 
unprofitable.  You  will  possibly  find  your 
own  emotions  renewed  in  seeing  them  blos- 
som again  in  the  soul  of  your  child.  And 
with  your  wisdom  and  supervising  maturity 
you  will  know  when  to  stop  and  change  the 
course  of  these  feelings,  because  you  will  know 
when  they  are  becoming  dangerous  and  un- 
wholesome. ^Vnd  you  will  turn  from  one  to 
another,  and  so  gently,  but  surely,  train  all  the 
emotions  because  you  will  select  your  subjects 
with  care,  having  that  in  mind.  You  will 
make  many  a  dark  day  bright,  and  many  a 
dreary  day  delightful,  because  j^ou  will  show 
liow  to  get  at  the  springs  of  the  universal  life, 
which  makes  people  superior  to  their  immedi- 
ate environment. 


HISTORY  149 


The  best  way  to  begin  the  teaching  of  his- 
tory with  little  children  is  through  the  study  of 
personalities,  that  is,  biography.  You  have 
been  teaching,  let  us  say,  the  geography  of 
France.  AVell,  Napoleon  comes  first  to  mind, 
and  that  offers  at  once  a  starting  point  for  get- 
ting a  great  deal  of  interesting  historical 
material  through  the  study  of  the  biography  of 
that  amazing  individual.  In  English  history 
you  have  your  work  cut  out  for  you,  from  King 
Alfred  onwards.  You  can  vary  it  any  time 
by  taking  now  rulers  and  conquerors,  now 
literary  men,  now  scientific  men,  now  ex- 
plorers, now  churchmen.  There  is  no  land 
that  has  not  its  interesting  figures  and  as 
you  deal  with  the  geography,  teaching  the 
story  of  the  land,  teach  also  the  story  of 
some  leading  personality,  so  that  by  the  princi- 
ple of  association  you  link  the  land  and  the 
individual.  Just  as  the  history  of  England 
is  the  history  of  London,  or  that  of  France 
is  the  history  of  Paris,  so  almost  every  epoch 
of  history  has  some  leading  figure.  In  fact, 
it  will  be  well  to  do  this  by  the  great  epochs 
of  history,  which  are  often  named  for  individ- 
uals, as  the  Age  of  Napoleon,  or  the  Age  of 
Frederick  the  Great,  or  the  Age  of  Pericles, 


150  t?:ac;iiing  in  the  home 

and  so  on.  Who  these  people  were,  and  what 
tliey  did,  is  an  endless  tale,  to  he  sure,  hut  tlie 
main  outlines  can  be  very  readily  grasped  and 
made  the  basis  for  historical  exposition. 
There  is  no  better  way  of  teaching  history  than 
through  the  biographical  medium.  You  will 
lind,  for  one  thing,  that  such  characters  are 
very  speedily  embodied  into  the  play  of  chil- 
dren, and  you  are  thus  forming  also  the  play- 
stuff  of  the  child's  mind  and  this  of  a  quality 
which  yields  knowledge.  Be  somewhat  careful 
to  select  the  great  outstanding  figures  first, 
though  it  makes  little  difference  where  you 
start.  It  is  an  advantage  of  course  to  be  con- 
secutive. The  Greek,  Roman  and  Semitic 
mythologies  form  the  best  point  of  departure, 
because  mythology  represents,  itself,  the  child- 
hood of  the  race  and  accords  naturally  with 
the  psychological  instincts  and  habits  of  child 
thought.  Keep  it  as  a  principle  that  the 
nearer  you  get  to  the  beginnings  of  race  his- 
tory and  development  the  surer  you  are  that 
you  are  dealing  with  the  materials  of  child 
thought. 

For  this  purpose  fairy  tales  of  all  lands  are 
useful  and  interesting  because  they  are  really 
the  outcome  of  racial  myths  of  one  kind  or 
another.  Look  into  a  book  like  Fraser's 
Golden  Bough,  for  example,  and  see  what  the 


HISTORY  151 

childhood  of  the  race  was  like,  and  you  will  find 
many  things  to  interest  you  as  well  as  the  child. 
It  is  interesting,  sometimes,  to  take  the  pagan 
deities  and  see  them  under  their  various  forms, 
Greek,  Roman,  Semitic,  Norse  and  Germanic, 
and  see  the  same  idea  change  its  form  as  it 
changes  its  climate  and  surroundings.  But 
see  to  it  that  it  is  not  left  hanging  in  the  air, 
unconnected  with  anything.  Link  German 
fairies  and  myths  with  Germany.  Link  Eng- 
lish stories  with  England.  If  you  deal  with 
the  Arabian  Nights  get  fu'st  of  all  a  picture  of 
Haroun  and  the  Bagdad  of  his  time  fixed  in 
the  mind  as  a  suitable  prelude  to  the  tales  them- 
selves. Japanese  and  other  Asiatic  folklore 
will  be  found  interesting  as  a  variant  from 
European  matter.  All  this  has  historical 
value  and  is  the  beginning  of  history.  You 
can  easily  tell  the  story  of  the  Ten  Thousand 
Greeks^  as  Xenophon  tells  it,  to  a  child,  and 
with  a  map  can  follow  the  route  they  travelled 
and  have  all  kinds  of  interesting  moments.  In 
every  such  case  see  that  a  personality  stands 
out  which  makes  the  story  radiate  around  him 
and  his  work,  because  this  is  the  easiest  way  to 
fix  the  details  in  the  mind.  It  brings  a  sort  of 
consecutiveness  to  the  narrative  and  helps  to 
drop  things  into  an  orderly  form. 

Most  children  are  interested  in  the  childhood 


152  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

of  great  men,  and  tin's  ])y  way  of  introduction, 
forms  a  very  effective  method  of  creating  inter- 
est. Think  of  what  may  be  done  in  this  way, 
for  example,  with  the  story  of  INIoses,  begin- 
ning with  the  baby  in  the  bulrushes!  And  this 
again  leads  me  to  say  that  Egypt  with  its 
magic  and  mystery,  is  a  wonderful  field  for  this 
sort  of  thing.  If  j^ou  once  make  an  outline  of 
Moses'  biography  and  reduce  it  to  modern 
terms,  and  then  read  the  classic  passages  from 
the  Bible  whicli  tell  tliat  history,  you  have  in 
fact  started  the  child  on  what  is  known  as  the 
historic  method  by  which  all  modern  history 
writing  is  governed. 

Often  the  history  of  special  groups  makes  an 
interesting  historical  excursion,  as  when,  for 
example,  you  take  up  the  Crusades  and  open 
up  the  wealth  of  material  which  they  afford. 
Or,  if  you  are  interested  in  orders,  take  the 
Kriights  Templars,  or  the  Knights  Hospital- 
lers, or  the  Teutonic  Knights,  and  work  out 
their  story,  as  any  encyclopjedia  or  special 
works  give  it.  It  will  be  found  very  fruitful 
and  be  somewhat  out  of  the  common  pathway. 
Don't  be  afraid  to  dip  into  unusual  things,  al- 
ways remembering  that  you  tell  about  real 
people  and  real  things,  and  fix  in  the  mind 
somebody  who  had  something  to  do  with  the 
events  recorded.     For  American  children,  the 


HISTORY  153 

great  discoverers,  especially  those  of  your  own 
region,  and  the  leading  figures  of  American 
history,  will  be  found  useful.  Such  figures  as 
De  Soto,  Pere  Marquette,  lend  themselves  to 
wonderful  effect  in  opening  and  developing  the 
historic  sense.  Similarly,  the  biography  of 
Franklin  or  of  Washington  and  others  show 
what  can  be  done  in  the  way  of  integrating 
American  history  before  the  full  importance  of 
it  is  realized.  The  heroes  of  special  sections 
like  Daniel  Boone  or  Sam  Houston  add  the 
touch  of  local  color  and  inspiration.  Every  por- 
tion of  our  land  has  such  local  figures  and  they 
should  be  studied  first  for  themselves  and  then 
for  their  larger  relations  to  the  national  life. 

But  let  this  be  at  first  objectively  done. 
Just  let  the  story  tell  itself  and  don't  try  to 
make  it  didactic  in  the  sense  of  formally  com- 
mitting and  holding  up  the  child  to  its  mastery 
in  formal  way.  If  you  do  your  work  carefully 
the  interest  you  excite  will  do  that  better  than 
you  can  do  it  by  formal  insistence.  Let  the 
child  repeat  the  story  as  often  as  possible  by 
telling  it  over  to  others,  or  if  told  by  one  parent 
let  it  be  repeated  to  the  other.  Such  names 
readily  become  household  words  and  when  met 
with  later  on  are  old  friends  with  whom  the 
new  relation  of  scholarly  approach  is  readily 
cultivated.     You  will  see  how  easily  all  this 


154  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

can  be  done  in  connection  with  the  geography, 
because  so  many  of  the  world  great  names  are 
linked  with  the  physical  configurations  of  the 
earth,  as  Hudson's  Bay,  or  Magellan's  Straits, 
and  the  like.  In  fact,  these  two  usually  go  on 
parallel  lines.  When  you  meet  the  one,  teach 
also  the  other. 

In  the  study  of  biography  as  histor}%  pic- 
tures and  photographs  help  a  great  deal,  and 
whenever  accessible  should  be  freely  employed. 
That  visualizes  what  is  taught  and  makes  one 
more  agency  by  which  the  memory  will  retain 
what  is  told.  Often  some  curious  phase  of 
costume  will  cause  most  important  historical 
matter  to  be  fixed  in  the  thought.  As  a 
preacher  I  have  often  found,  and  even  more  so 
as  a  teacher,  that  when  I  could  link  important 
historical  events  with  something  essentially  out 
of  the  common,  some  odd  legend,  or  striking 
piece  of  information,  some  linguistic  twist,  and 
then  visualize  it  as  with  a  blackboard,  as  I  often 
did,  the  teaching  survived,  when  without  these 
devices  it  was  often  lost  and  forgotten.  INIake 
the  freest  use  of  these  things.  If  you  are  in 
the  neighborhood  of  museums  use  these,  for 
that  makes  vivid  and  real  what  may  otherwise 
be  vague  and  dimly  comprehended.  I  found 
it  useful  and  suggestive  often  in  the  study  of 


HISTORY  155 

some  character  in  the  history  of  the  past  to  in- 
quire who  of  our  contemporary  figures  it  sug- 
gested, with  some  interesting  and  amusing 
results.  ]\Iy  own  children  got  special  amuse- 
ment out  of  the  habit  of  playfully  dubbing  the 
people  who  came  to  our  house  by  names  sug- 
gested by  their  resemblance  to  historical  char- 
acters they  had  read  about,  or  had  brought  to 
their  attention.  There  is  a  field  for  much 
household  fun  here.  Of  course  it  must  not  be 
maliciously  done.  It  can  be  kept  in  the  area 
of  pure  mirth  and  is  really  great  sport.  The 
varieties  of  attitude  of  our  friends  toward 
them  used  to  give  the  children  occasion  for 
much  acting,  and  if  people  who  are  pompous, 
condescending,  or  contemptuous  to  children 
could  only  see  these  things  as  they  live  again  in 
the  nursery  of  carefully  nurtured  children,  they 
would  have  some  uncomfortable  moments, 
which  might  not  be  entirely  without  desirable 
results!  But  in  a  similar  way  those  who  dis- 
play qualities  of  generosity,  courtesy,  patience, 
and  especially  evidence  of  real  interest  in  child- 
hood, also  have  their  reward.  ]My  own  chil- 
dren will  never  forget  the  distinguished  Greek 
scholar  who  told  them  the  story  of  Charon  by 
exhibiting  a  coin  found  in  a  Greek  tomb  to  pay 
his  fee. 


156  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

II 

The  use  of  documents  again  makes  history 
study  interesting  and  effective.  Go  to  your 
library  and  look  into  Winsor's  Narrative  and 
Critical  History  of  America,  by  way  of  illus- 
tration, and  you  will  see  what  a  mine  there  is  of 
interesting  original  documents,  which  by  re- 
production form  the  basis  of  useful  and  illumi- 
nating history.  Now  many  of  our  national 
documents,  like  the  Compact  in  the  Mayfioicer, 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  Penn's 
Treaty  with  the  Indians  and  others,  have  been 
reproduced  in  inexpensive  forms,  which  may 
easily  be  procured.  That  document  is  what  is 
called  a  first  source  of  history.  Every  time 
you  use  such  a  document  you  are  using  a 
source,  and  by  them  3'^ou  can  show  how  history- 
is  made  and  the  study  of  history  is  developed. 
Your  own  court  records  are  such  sources. 
Soldiers'  discharges,  naturalization  papers,  cit- 
izenship papers,  ballots,  state  constitutions, 
Thanksgiving  proclamations,  and  official  docu- 
ments, generally  all  fall  in  this  class.  It  makes 
the  thing  talked  about  concrete  to  show  the 
document  around  which  the  history  revolves. 
The  White  Papers,  the  Yellotv  Papers,  the 
Gray  Papers,  issued  bj^  the  European  govern- 
ments in  the  present  war,  are  such  first  sources 


HISTORY  157 

of  history.  This  matter  is  much  more  impor- 
tant than  it  seems,  for,  though  you  are  using  it 
only  to  make  concrete  and  vivid  what  you  are 
talking  about,  really  you  are  inculcating  the 
principle  of  research  and  of  speaking,  not  at 
random  but  on  the  authority  of  somebody  who 
has  a  right  to  speak.  Nothing  afflicts  the 
American  intellectual  life  so  much,  or  so  pain- 
fully, at  the  present  moment  as  irresponsible 
utterance.  If  you  can  by  the  use  of  docu- 
ments teach  a  child  in  its  a^Dproach  to  any- 
thing, to  ask  for  something  that  is  authorita- 
tive, you  will  by  one  stroke  make  it  immune 
from  newspaper  exaggeration  and  falsification, 
and  loose  talk  generally,  whatever  the  source. 
That  is  great  gain  for  intellectual  stability. 
There  is  nothing  difficult  or  mysterious  about 
it.  Utilize  the  same  instinct  that  makes  a  child 
take  the  stuffing  out  of  a  doll  to  find  out  what 
it  is  made  of.  It  helps  in  reading,  too.  It 
enlarges  the  vocabulary.  If  you  have  a  little 
dramatic  sense  you  can  make  much  of  it. 

The  Emancipation  Proclamation  in  this  way 
becomes  a  living  document.  So  does  the 
Magna  Charta.  So  will  Lincoln's  Gett/jshurg 
Address,  and  so  will  many  other  important  and 
interesting  documents.  Here  again  if  you  will 
look  into  the  back  of  your  Oxford  Bible,  or  if 
you  will  get  the  Illustrated  Bible  Treasury, 


158  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

you  will  have  a  mass  of  material  to  your  hand. 
I  merely  mention  these  because  they  will  most 
readily  show  the  process  of  seeing  things  at  first 
hand,  and  recognizing  that  you  are  dealing  not 
with  second  hand,  but  first  hand  material.  It 
is  a  great  revelation  to  children,  and  hardly 
less  to  adults,  to  contrast  things  in  the  form 
with  which  they  are  commonly  known,  with 
their  original  forms.  When  this  can  be  done 
by  pictures  or  documents  so  much  the  better. 
But  you  can  easily  lead  from  this  practise  with 
documents  to  something  quite  as  fruitful  and 
important.  You  can  open  the  use  of  books  of 
reference.  Your  use  of  the  dictionary  will 
already  have  started  things  in  this  direction 
and  of  this  more  later.  But  in  finding  these 
documents  you  can  show  how  there  are  books 
which  are  simply  collections  of  such  documents. 
Professor  A.  B.  Hart's  American  History 
Told  by  Contemporaries  occurs  to  me  in  this 
connection.  Here  you  have  the  actual  actors, 
in  the  periods  of  which  he  deals,  speaking  in 
their  own  tongue,  and  giving  the  views  and 
attitudes  of  eye-witnesses  and  actors  in  the 
drama  of  the  making  of  the  American  repubhc. 
An  ounce  of  this  sort  of  study  of  American 
history  is  worth  a  ton  of  stupid,  lifeless  recital 
of  events  without  a  living  personality  behind 


HISTORY  159 

it,  speaking  in  his  native  and  contemporary 
tongue.  There  are  many  manuals  of  this  sort 
pubhshed  and  they  are  easily  accessible. 

Then  again  our  government  publishes  many 
things  of  this  sort  which  may  be  had  for  the 
asking.  If  for  example  you  want  to  know 
about  the  state  of  education  in  South  iVmerica, 
write  to  the  Bureau  of  Education  in  Washing- 
ton and  get  its  publication  on  that  subject, 
which  gives  not  only  a  wonderful  series  of 
facts,  especially  interesting  to  North  Ameri- 
cans at  this  present  time,  but  pictures  of  the 
South  American  universities  and  schools,  some 
of  them  the  oldest  in  the  Western  World,  long 
preceding  ours,  by  the  way.  The  average 
American  will  have  a  very  different  idea  of  the 
South  American  republics  after  reading  this 
valuable  little  treatise.  But  our  government 
publishes  many  such  things  about  children, 
about  industries,  about  national  reserves,  maps, 
documents,  almost  innumerable.  Get  the 
habit  of  writing  for  these  documents.  They 
are  valuable  often  as  information,  but  even 
more  valuable  as  instruction  in  seeking  and 
using  sources  of  authority  in  the  shape  of  doc- 
uments. All  this  simph'^  anticipates  what  now 
freshmen  have  to  be  taught  de  novo.  A  child 
with  this  habit  established  will  soon  learn  to 


IGO  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

look  up  matters  on  its  own  account  and  in  the 
search  of  one  thing  will  often  find  otiiers 
equally  or  more  valuahle. 

This  study  of  documents  reveals  many  things 
which  the  writers  of  course  did  not  intend.  To 
read  Francis  Pretty's  account  of  JSir  Francis 
Drake's  Voyage  about  the  Whole  Globe  tells 
many  more  things  than  merely  the  account  of 
the  voyage  itself,  quite  naturally.  In  a  simi- 
lar way  to  read  Rev.  John  Robinson's  Ad- 
dress to  the  Departing  Pilgrims  at  Leyden  is 
a  far  more  moving  thing  than  the  account  of 
the  voyage  itself,  full  of  moving  details  that 
is,  as  found  in  Bradford's  History.  The 
Tale  of  Pocahontas,  by  Raphe  Hamor,  secre- 
tary of  the  colony,  is  a  pen  i)icture  of  Virginia 
in  Capt.  John  Smith's  time  not  easily  forgot- 
ten. It  is  thus  that  we  get  into  the  soul  of  his- 
tory and  live  it  and  make  it  our  own.  If  you 
want  to  see  the  most  impressive  story  of  an 
Indian  war  get  Edward  Randolph's  Causes 
and  Results  of  King  Philip's  War,  and  you 
will  understand  it,  as  it  is  not  possible  to  under- 
stand it  from  any  mere  history.  This  is  a  por- 
trayal of  a  group  of  events  by  a  master  hand 
that  almost  makes  you  see  the  contemporary 
figures.  Thus  the  imagination  is  constantly 
reenforced  by  real  materials,  and  the  develop- 
ment of  habits  of  verification,  with  the  freest 


HISTORY  161 

emotional  play  of  sympathy  and  understand- 
ing upon  the  events,  makes  the  finest  soil  imag- 
inable for  the  building  up  of  a  finely  furnished, 
tolerant  and  appreciative  mind.  That  is  what 
the  study  of  history  should  do,  and  the  greater 
use  of  original  documents  the  more  effective 
the  result. 

"As  a  record,"  says  Professor  Hart,  "sources 
are  the  basis  of  history,  but  not  mere  raw  ma- 
terial like  the  herbaria  of  the  botanist,  or  the 
chemicals  of  a  laboratory,  stuffs  to  be  destroyed 
in  discovering  their  nature;  as  utterances  of 
men  living  when  they  were  made,  they  have  in 
them  the  breath  of  human  life;  history  is  the 
biology  of  human  conduct.  Nobody  can  settle 
any  historical  question  without  an  appeal  to 
the  sources,  or  without  taking  into  account  the 
character  of  the  actors  in  history."  ^ 

It  is  just  this  element  of  the  characters  tell- 
ing their  own  story  which  gives  the  sources 
their  importance,  as  they  reveal  motives  and 
interests  which  could  not  be  so  securely  estab- 
lished in  any  other  way.  A  fellow  voyager  of 
La  Salle  will  tell  the  story  of  the  discoverer's 
ideas,  expectations  and  experiences,  as  no  his- 
torian, however  gifted,  could  tell  it.  Dipping 
into  town  records  in  this  way,  following  up 
genealogical  histories  and  family  documents, 

1  American  History  Told  by  Contemporaries,  Vol.  I,  p.  3. 


162  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

makes  a  most  interesting  habit  for  the  child, 
beside  teaching  the  importance  of  records,  as 
such,  the  significance  of  which  has  already  been 
discussed.  These  are  not  dead  materials,  they 
are  the  very  life  of  the  people  involved,  and  so 
the  contact  is  with  the  actual  life  of  the  past. 
In  no  other  way  can  the  assimilation  of  history 
be  accomplished.  But  there  are  other  living 
documents  in  the  form  of  town  charters,  town 
monuments,  which  are  always  to  be  had.  In 
the  newer  portions  of  our  country  very  impor- 
tant interests  can  be  created  in  this  manner  and 
often  the  development  of  a  given  section,  influ- 
enced by  what  such  studies  bring  forth.  By 
the  time  high  school  age  is  attained,  a  well 
established  habit  of  this  kind  may  well  have 
been  created  which  may  have  lasting  results  in 
the  keeping  of  important  records.  Few  clerks 
of  churches  imagine  that  they  are  writing  what 
will  be  in  time  to  come,  if  they  survive,  as 
measures  ought  to  be  taken  to  see  that  they  do 
survive,  be  important  records  of  names,  events, 
issues  in  the  community  hfe,  perhaps  personal 
interests  of  great  historical  value,  through  the 
fixing  of  dates  of  birth,  baptism  and  the  like. 
The  church  records  of  New  England  in  this 
way  are  priceless  in  value,  because  so  often 
carefully  and  painstakingly  made.  What 
would  we  not  give  if  we  had  at  this  moment 


HISTORY  163 

more  records  of  the  personal  history  of  Shaks- 
pere?  How  we  would  prize  more  of  the  early 
personal  history  of  Lincoln  or  of  many  another 
personality  that  bulks  so  large  in  the  history  of 
our  yet  young  country ! 

If  all  this  seems  rather  mature  to  begin  with 
three-year-olds  or  four-year-olds,  let  me  sim- 
ply remind  you  that  you  would  not  hesitate  an 
instant  to  read  portions  of  letters  from  an 
absent  mother  to  the  children  or  those  of 
an  absent  father,  or  any  other  member  of 
the  family.  The  comings  and  goings,  the 
people  seen,  and  the  new  and  strange  things 
encountered,  would  be  of  veiy  great  in- 
terest to  such  children  about  those  whom  they 
know  and  love.  Why,  then,  may  not  a  sim- 
ilar interest  be  possible  in  some  of  the  great- 
est characters  in  history,  especially  when  you 
can  show  their  handwriting,  some  facsimile 
of  their  w^ork,  or  some  important  event  in  which 
they  have  taken  a  part?  Of  course,  much  will 
depend  upon  your  preparation  for  these  things, 
and  your  manner  of  introducing  it,  and  your 
own  enthusiasm  in  handling  it.  But  that  it 
may  be  done  admits  of  no  reasonable  doubt.  I 
have  seen  children  listen  breathlessly  to  docu- 
ments which  might  at  first  seem  to  be  beyond 
them.  But  by  the  time  you  explain  that  this 
woman  was  about  to  die  for  her  opinions,  you 


164.  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

will  find  that  the  reading  of  The  Justification 
of  a  Condemned  Qiiakcress,  by  Mary  Dyer,  a 
matter  which  will  carry  itself  along  and  at  the 
same  time  lay  the  foundation  for  tolerance, 
which  is  one  of  the  greatest  needs  of  our  own 
time.  You  do  not  have  to  take  up  the  silly 
fictions,  which  so  many  persons  think  it  needful 
to  offer  children,  to  get  matter  that  will  inter- 
est and  instruct.  Historical  documents  with- 
out number  are  now  within  the  reach  of  any 
parent  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  ask  for 
them.  The  leaflets  of  the  Old  South  Histor- 
ical Society  in  Boston  will  be  found  most  use- 
ful for  this  purpose.  They  are  made  up  al- 
most exclusively  of  original  documents  dealing 
chiefly  with  New  England.  The  local  histor- 
ical societies  in  other  localities  doubtless  have 
such  material  also.  They  furnish  entertain- 
ment, instruction,  and  culture  simultaneously. 
As  this  chapter  is  being  concluded  there 
comes  an  article  in  the  New  York  Nation  from 
its  Paris  correspondent  which  throws  an  inter- 
esting light  upon  this  documentary  study  as  it 
is  being  carried  on  throughout  all  grades  in  the 
schools  of  France  at  the  present  moment. 
The  school  system  of  France,  as  is  well  kno\Mi, 
is  a  unit  from  the  very  bottom  to  the  very  top, 
presided  over  by  a  INIinister  of  Public  Instruc- 
tion.    Says   this   correspondent:     "It    is   the 


HISTORY  165 

Government's  wish  that  all  the  students  of 
France  shall  receive  from  the  war  raging  at 
their  frontier  and  in  their  midst  the  utmost  civic 
instruction  for  the  future"  All  classes  open 
with  lectures  and  discussion  of  the  war,  its 
causes,  etc.,  and  the  correspondent  adds :  "In 
all  the  classes,  also,  according  to  their  ca- 
pacities, docinnentary  lessons  are  given.  Each 
day  in  one  of  the  most  frequented  Paris  colleges 
the  news  given  by  one  of  the  principal  papers, 
comprising  the  official  communications  of  the 
Allies  and  of  the  Germans  and  Austrians  as 
well,  are  followed  out  on  detailed  maps^  an- 
alyzed, compared  and  criticised.  Beside  the 
local  knowledge  of  the  war  thus  obtained,  there 
is  a  certain  reasonable  opinion  conveyed  by  the 
students  to  their  families.  It  is  easy  to  under- 
stand what  influence  this  may  exert  against 
over-confidence  or  depression  excited  by  exag- 
gerating what  are,  after  all,  little  more  than 
"tactical"  incidents  of  little  importance  in  the 
essential  "strateg}^"  and  still  less  w^arranting 
any  surmises  as  to  decisive  action.  Tliis  is 
true  civic  education  in  calm  and  deliberate 
judgment  during  trying  times/' ^ 

The  italics  are  my  own.  This  description  of 
how  the  students  of  France  are  getting  the 
solidest  kind  of  education  for  their  future  serv- 

1  The  Nation,  Jan.  28,  1915,  p.  103. 


166  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

ice  as  wise  and  useful  citizens  of  the  Republic 
was  not  written  with  any  educational  intent. 
But  it  describes  exactly  what  1  have  in  mind 
as  to  "documentary  study"  planned  to  the 
grade  of  comprehension  by  the  parent  teacher. 
There  is  hardh^  a  single  exercise  which  is  more 
calculated  to  train  the  reasoning  power,  to  de- 
velop judgment  and  investigation,  than  this 
sort  of  thing,  about  the  current  events  of  the 
world,  the  materials  of  daily  conversation  and 
interest. 

Ill 

Complete  historical  pictures  should  be  made 
a  further  element  in  the  teaching  of  history. 
By  this  expression  I  mean  that  far-reaching 
and  important  historical  events  should  be  pic- 
torialized  in  their  completeness,  rather  than 
merely  assigned  their  place  in  the  chronology 
of  the  national  or  world  history.  By  way  of 
illustration,  it  is  now  comparatively  easy  when 
you  talk  of  the  Battle  of  Waterloo  to  get  to- 
gether the  pictures  of  the  great  actors  on  all 
sides  of  the  warring  nations.  It  is  possible  to 
get  all  kinds  of  material  which  bears  on  the 
battle  itself,  to  collect  poems  relating  to  it,  or 
growing  out  of  it,  passages  in  histories,  or  let- 
ters relating  to  it,  and  making  that  battle  a 
complete  historical  picture,  not  as  an  English 


HISTORY  167 

victory  or  a  French  defeat,  or  even  as  an  im- 
portant date  in  European  history,  but  as  a 
complete  historical  event  viewed  simultane- 
ously from  all  sides.  Of  course,  how  complete 
you  make  it  depends  upon  the  capacity  of  your 
child  and  the  capacity  of  the  teacher.  But  in 
any  case  you  can  mass  all  kinds  of  material, 
literary,  pictorial,  historical,  geographical,  all 
at  the  same  time.  If  to  this  you  add  discussion 
of  the  changes  in  military  warfare,  arms  and 
equipment,  and  similar  matters,  you  have  an 
immense  area  to  draw  from  to  make  the  thing 
a  sort  of  complete  conspectus  of  the  times 
viewed  with  reference  to  a  single  great  event. 
If  one  will  take  Creasy's  Fifteen  Decisive  Bat- 
tles of  History,  in  this  fashion  there  will  be 
opened  a  field  for  instruction,  entertainment, 
and  inspiration  which  will  be  of  vast  effect  in 
the  child's  outlook  upon  all  events  and  that  is 
the  real  purpose  of  this  kind  of  study.  We 
have  reached  a  stage  in  the  world's  life,  where 
nobody  cares  any  longer  for  the  English  view, 
the  German  view,  the  French  view,  or  the 
American  view  of  anything  except  as  these 
help  us  to  know  the  truth,  for  the  truth  alone 
can  make  us  free.  What  the  world  needs,  and 
what  is  especially  to  be  desired,  in  the  training 
of  future  citizens  is  the  ability  to  recognize  that 
great  events  are  not  settled  off  hand,  and  that 


168  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

it  requires  investigation,  deliberation,  and 
weigliing  of  evidence,  to  form  any  useful  or 
sound  judgment. 

Thus  you  create  tlie  habit  of  investigation. 
The  child  will  unconsciously  learn  that  the 
world  was  not  made  of  things  that  do  appear. 
It  will  learn  to  look  behind  any  given  mani- 
festation to  its  cause.  It  will  learn  in  a  rudi- 
mentary way  to  go  about  finding  those  causes, 
and  will  very  likely  ask  a  great  many  questions 
which  j^ou  cannot  answer,  and  which  perhaps 
nobody  can  answer.  But  this  of  itself  is  not  a 
thing  to  be  regretted.  JNIany  things  have  to  be 
left  unanswered  in  this  short  life  of  ours,  and 
the  sooner  that  is  understood  the  better  for  him 
w^ho  understands  it.  Still,  it  is  wise  to  begin 
early  the  investigating  habit.  It  helps  to  train 
the  reasoning  power.  It  helps  concentration 
because  it  fixes  the  attention  on  one  thing,  but 
from  so  many  different  angles  that  it  creates  a 
sort  of  sporting  interest  as  to  how  the  thing 
will  eventually  come  out.  It  teaches  hotv  to 
suspend  judgment.  Hitherto  we  have  taught 
children  history  very  much  as  we  have  taught 
them  the  multiplication  table  and  with  about 
the  same  result,  which  is  nothing  worth  having. 
The  Discovery  of  America,  taken  in  this  way, 
will  lead  all  round  the  world  and  take  in  not 
only  Columbus  but  the  preparatory  events  in 


HISTORY  169 

the  world,  and  will  make  that  event  a  much 
profounder  thing  than  any  single  man's  daring 
and  desire  to  find  the  New  World.  If  you 
take  the  Invention  of  Printing  in  this  way  you 
will  be  led  into  a  veritable  wonder  world  and 
one  that  will  more  than  repay  all  efforts  put 
into  it.  Take  for  example  such  a  man  as 
Roger  Bacon  and  run  down  all  the  wonderful 
stories  and  legends  about  him  and  you  will  find 
the  telephone,  the  submarine,  and  tlie  aero- 
plane, ten  times  as  interesting  as  they  are,  and 
that  is  itself  something  wonderful.  Get  all 
around  particular  things  in  the  history  of  your 
own  land,  in  the  history  of  other  lands,  whetlier 
it  is  the  history  of  individuals,  of  events,  or  dis- 
coveries, or  wliat  not.  The  investigating  habit 
is  perfectly  natural  with  children,  and  only 
needs  intelligent  directing.  "Wliether  it  is  util- 
ized for  real  educational  purposes  or  left  to 
drift  into  mere  curiosity  about  useless  common- 
places depends  upon  you.  For  this  purpose, 
a  little  note-book  carried  around  for  jotting 
down  curious  and  interesting  things,  is  ver^'^ 
useful. 

This  habit  is  particularly  useful  for  recrea- 
tional purposes.  Painters  and  paintings, 
sculptors  and  sculptures,  art  objects  generally, 
lend  themselves  to  many  miscellaneous  kinds  of 
mental  fertilization  through  this  habit.     But 


170  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

properly  it  begins  with  something  of  world  in- 
terest and  importance  around  which  many  other 
kinds  of  knowledge  are  grouped,  which  shows 
how  truly  all  knowledge  is  coordinated  and  how 
the  developed  mind  looks  at  things  which  call 
for  observation  and  judgment.  This  idea  will 
reappear  again  when  we  come  to  talk  about  sci- 
ence in  general  and  particular  sciences.  But 
the  fact  that  things  having  historical  impor- 
tance can  be  pictorialized  and  lend  themselves 
to  narrative  and  dramatic  form  in  teaching, 
makes  history  the  field  where  it  can  be  done 
with  least  resistance  and  greatest  results. 

Nor  should  it  be  overlooked  that  this  method 
has  another  very  important  bearing  upon  all 
kinds  of  study.  Almost  the  first  thing  now  re- 
quired for  the  effective  knowledge  of  any  sub- 
ject is  to  find  out  the  history  of  the  study  of 
the  subject.  That  tends  to  reveal  what  has 
been  done  and  where  advances  may  properly 
be  begun.  Of  course  this  has  little  to  do  with 
teaching  young  children.  But  it  has  every- 
thing to  do  with  saving  or  wasting  time. 
There  is  no  use,  for  example,  except  as  a  mat- 
ter of  self-indulgence,  for  anybody  who  is  not 
historically  occupied  with  the  story  of  trans- 
portation to  go  into  the  details  of  the  earliest 
means  of  locomotion.  It  may  be  pleasant  to 
know  that  cars  were  once  dra^^'n  bv  horses,  but 


HISTORY  171 

it  is  a  sheer  waste  of  time  to  go  and  dig  up 
horse  cars  and  expound  them.  We  hve  in  an 
age  of  electric  transportation,  and  the  child 
should  begin  there  and  use  the  past  merely  as 
furnishing  the  means  of  contrast,  and  as 
enriching  the  ijresent.  It  is  much  more  im- 
portant to  know  that  a  gun  is  now  made  that 
can  fire  a  thousand-pound  projectile  ten  or 
fifteen  miles  than  to  know  what  the  calibre  of 
the  cannons  in  the  Najioleonic  wars  was.  It  is 
interesting,  of  course,  if  you  happen  to  run 
across  the  information,  but  not  worth  while 
taking  time  to  find  out.  It  still  remains  true 
that  one  must  know  in  a  general  way  the  his- 
tory of  the  past  before  one  can  appreciate  the 
present  or  forecast  the  future.  To  know  how 
to  go  about  this  is  the  important  thing,  and 
recognize  its  necessity  under  some  conditions 
is  the  decisive  element  in  the  premises. 

Thus,  why  a  general  took  one  route  rather 
than  another,  why  a  nation  chose  one  alliance 
rather  than  another,  why  one  invention  suc- 
ceeded where  anotlier  failed,  why  one  man  of 
great  ability  failed  where  another  of  conspic- 
uously lesser  ability  succeeded,  why  national 
development  followed  one  path  rather  than 
another,  all  these  and  similar  things,  require 
going  back  over  the  ground  and  showing 
what  helped  and  what  hindered  any  given  re- 


172  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

suit.  Often  the  reason  will  be  climate,  some- 
times geography,  sometimes  the  season  of  the 
year,  sometimes  an  agricultural  interest,  some- 
times a  manufacturing  interest,  sometimes  a 
hasty  or  foolish  speech,  sometimes  a  silent 
tongue ;  all  these  are  historical  causes  and  sub- 
jects for  reflection  and  discussion.  There  are 
no  accidents  in  history.  Everything  has  a 
cause,  and  sometimes  is  itself  both  cause  and 
effect.  To  master  that  truth  is  itself  to  grasp 
in  childhood  a  tool  of  knowledge  which  is  of 
supremest  importance.  Applied  to  personal 
concerns,  like  money,  occupation,  industry,  sac- 
rifice, and  the  like,  it  is  the  story  of  the  life 
of  mankind. 


CHAPTER  VII 

SCIENCE  IN  GENERAL 

The  most  recent  report  of  the  United  States 
Commissioner  of  Education  points  out  that 
there  is  lamentable  lack  of  coordination  in  our 
high  schools  in  the  study  of  science.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  it  cannot  be  said  that  there  is 
such  study  at  all,  because  the  courses  are  not 
related  to  each  other,  and  the  student  simply 
takes  what  happens  to  come  along,  almost 
without  reference  to  what  preceded  it  or  ought 
to  follow  it.  Perhaps  as  our  high  schools  are 
now  constituted  and  held  firmly  in  the  grip  of 
the  college  requirements  for  admission,  with 
which  they  have  nothing  to  do,  about  which 
they  are  not  consulted,  and  for  which  they  have 
nothing  to  do  but  prepare  their  students,  this 
is  only  what  is  to  be  expected. 

But  there  is  behind  all  this  a  much  graver  de- 
fect about  which  I  wish  to  say  a  few  words  be- 
fore taking  up  study  with  little  children  of 
specific  sciences,  and  that  is  the  lack  of  the 
understanding  of  science  in  general.  Science 
and  the  scientific  spirit  have  been  made  the 

173 


174  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

subject  of  so  much  discussion  that  a  recent 
writer  has  even  ventured  to  say  that  many 
teachers  of  science  are  not  scientific  persons  at 
all.  It  may  well  be  that  this  is  true.  Just  as 
the  requirements  for  admission  in  English 
almost  of  necessity  preclude  teaching  of  liter- 
ature, so  that  the  young  people  come  to  college 
without  any  knowledge  of  literature,  or  any 
appreciation  of  literature,  so  they  come  without 
any  knowledge  of  science  per  se  and  no 
scientific  sense  properly  socalled.  But  if  the 
present  program  is  to  go  on,  and  there  is  no 
reason  to  expect  that  it  will  be  readily  changed, 
because  the  educational  machine  is  so  vast,  that 
changes  when  they  do  come  come  very  slowly 
and  are  dependent  upon  the  vast  army  of 
teachers  who  have  to  be  changed  also,  for  the 
present  it  may  as  well  be  taken  for  granted  that 
there  will  be  no  radical  changes  ver}'^  soon. 

Yet  to  have  something  of  the  scientific  spirit 
from  the  start  is  almost  the  sine  qua  noii  of 
effective  education.  What  has  already  been 
said  with  reference  to  the  other  subjects  will 
have  prepared  the  reader  for  wliat  is  now  to  be 
suggested.  Science  is  a  habit  of  mind  rather 
than  anything  else.  It  is  a  specific  form  of  ap- 
proach to  knowledge,  which  clearly  differ- 
entiates itself  from  other  forms  of  approach. 
To  get  this  habit  of  coming  to  any  subject  is 


SCIENCE  IN  GENERAL  175 

itself  a  kind  of  science,  and  that  is  the  reason 
why  there  is  so  much  discussion  now  as  to  the 
psychological  relations  of  all  kinds  of  human 
activity.  It  is  now  recognized  very  clearly 
that  merely  to  get  facts  is  not  science.  Indeed 
whether  these  so-called  "facts"  are  facts,  de- 
pends upon  the  mind  of  the  investigator. 
Many  a  man  thinks  he  is  doing  a  scientific 
piece  of  work,  merel}^  to  gather,  laboriously 
enough,  great  masses  of  "facts"  which  have 
some  relation,  more  or  less,  to  the  subject  in 
hand.  To  watch  a  chemical  reaction  is  no 
more  scientific  study  than  to  watch  the  wheels 
of  an  automobile  go  round.  It  may  be  such, 
but  merely  watching  the  process  does  not  make 
it  science. 

The  same  may  be  true  of  a  great  many  other 
things  that  are  called  science.  The  so-called 
science  courses  in  high  schools  have  little  or 
nothing  to  do  with  science  in  its  real  essence 
and  meaning.  That  is  the  reason  why  you  can 
do  most  of  them  with  little  children,  as  I  am 
about  to  advise  you  to  do.  By  the  time  your 
child  reaches  high  school  age  and  work  he 
should  be  capable  of  doing  something  far  more 
complex  and  important  than  the  simple  things 
which  are  done  there  and  which,  except  on  their 
mathematical  side,  may  be  done  readily  enough 
by  very  young  children.     Most  of  it  is  merely 


176  TEACHING  IN  THP:  HOME 

memoriter  work,  dealing  with  things  they  have 
done,  and  the  experiments  do  not  usually,  ac- 
cording to  my  observation,  yield  anything  of 
the  scientific  habit  of  mind.  This  is  true  even 
of  college  students  to  a  great  degree.  It  is  of 
great  importance  that  children  should  be 
guided,  so  that  the  scientific  habit  will  by  and 
by  be  taken  for  granted,  and  the  intellectual 
expectations  and  efforts  molded  and  directed 
accordingly.  It  is  mainly  to  indicate  what 
this  scientific  habit  involves  that  this  chapter  is 
written.  It  is  to  avoid  the  error,  which  is  made 
in  many  other  things,  which  assumes  merely 
that  information  is  knowledge.  It  is  not.  It 
becomes  knowledge  only  when  it  is  classified. 
So  the  things  called  science  are  science  only 
when  they  spring  from  a  scientific  habit. 


The  scientific  spirit  begins  with  the  habit  of 
inquiry.  It  is  essentially  the  spirit  of  skepti- 
cism. But  do  not  let  this  frighten  you.  ]Most 
of  the  troubles  in  this  world  come  because  peo- 
ple tcill  not  take  the  trouble  to  inquire.  Half 
the  frauds  of  the  world  would  disappear  if  the 
people  who  become  victims  of  them  would  care- 
fully inform  themselves  and  analyze  the  prob- 
ability of  what  is  promised  has  of  being  per- 
formed.    Xow  the  child  naturallv  likes  to  in- 


SCIENCE  IN  GENERAL  177 

quire.  Its  sense  of  wonder  is  natural,  and  in 
this  it  epitomizes  the  history  of  the  race.  I 
am  not  urging  that  you  destroy  this  sense  of 
wonder,  because  it  is,  in  the  first  place,  one  of 
the  best  permanent  possessions  of  humanity, 
and  in  the  second  jjlace  is  the  source  of  imagi- 
native power  which  must  be  cultivated  and  not 
suppressed.  But  nobody  ought  to  ""wonder' 
about  things  that  can  be  found  out  by  effort. 
You  wonder  whether  or  that  thing  you  see  in 
the  papers  is  true.  AVell,  most  of  them  can 
be  verified,  if  they  are  true.  You  wonder  if 
such  a  statement  is  true.  Well,  you  can  look 
up  the  authorities  and  find  out.  There  is  no 
reason  why  one  should  stay  in  wonderland 
about  things  which  are  within  the  reach  of  dis- 
covery. You  have  a  right  to  "wonder"  about 
things  which  are  beyond  you,  but  not  about 
those  about  you,  which,  if  you  make  the  natu- 
ral and  reasonable  efforts  at  inquiry,  you  can 
find  out  for  yourself.  For  instance,  why 
should  anybody  wonder  about  his  income  and 
ex2:)enditures?  Apparently  most  people  do 
wonder  about  them,  to  tlieir  great  detriment. 
It  is  just  so  about  many  other  things. 

Now  the  scientific  spirit  of  inquiry  raises 
first  of  all  the  question  on  any  subject  whether 
it  is  a  subject  on  which  inquiri/  will  help.  Is 
it  knowable  or  not?     AVhethcr  we  shall  wear 


178  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

robes  of  white  in  Heaven  may  be  safely  set 
down  as  not  a  subject  for  scientific  inquiry. 
It  never  can  be  known.  But  whether  we  shall 
to-day  wear  a  heavy  dress  or  a  light  one,  and 
the  reasons  therefor,  are  easily  ascertainable. 
The  inquiring  spirit  takes  nothing  for  granted 
and  asks  first  of  all,  is  it  true.  And  even  be- 
fore that,  it  asks  can  it  be  known.  That  is 
how  the  scientific  spirit  begins,  and  this  is  of 
much  greater  importance  than  any  mere  fact 
or  set  of  facts. 

This  spirit  is  the  real  working  power  behind 
many  things  which  seem  to  be  alien  to  it.  You 
look  at  a  beautiful  picture,  and  admire  its  col- 
oring, its  perspective,  and  its  finished  and  de- 
lightful presentation  of  its  theme.  But  you 
do  not  see  the  laborious  studies  behind  it, 
which  were  necessary  before  that  picture  could 
be  painted.  Behind  all  art,  there  is  the  science 
of  drawing,  and  a  vast  deal  of  observation  and 
experiment,  and  a  great  deal  of  inquiry  and 
verification  of  all  sorts  of  things,  which  in 
themselves  have  no  beauty  whatever.  You 
hear  a  beautiful  symphony  or  sonata,  and  you 
are  thinking  only  of  the  charming  emotions 
which  are  created  in  you,  by  the  sounds  you 
hear  and  their  performance  upon  an  instru- 
ment. But  you  do  not  see  the  laborious  ef- 
forts which  had  to  precede  that  composition 


SCIENCE  IN  GENERAL  179 

before  it  reached  its  finished  state.  You  look 
at  a  beautiful  cathedral,  but  you  do  not  think 
of  the  mathematical  calculations  and  the 
drudgery  which  had  to  be  gone  through  with 
before  that  beautiful  building  came  into  being. 
All  these  are  the  scientific  background  of  ar- 
tistic creation.  There  is  a  general  delusion 
that  these  things  spring,  so  to  speak,  like  Mi- 
nerva, full-armed,  out  of  the  head  of  Jupiter. 
Nothing  is  farther  from  the  truth.  There 
used  to  be  a  story  that  ]Mr.  Lincoln  wrote  the 
Gettysburg  address  on  his  cuff  on  the  way 
down  from  Washington  to  the  famous  battle 
field.  It  is  now  known,  I  believe,  that  there 
are  several  recensions  of  that  sublime  bit  of 
Enghsh  composition.  You  sit  down  and  eat 
a  slice  of  delicious  bread.  But  you  rarely 
think  of  the  skill,  the  precision,  and  the  care 
which  went  into  the  baking,  of  which,  if  one 
single  element  were  left  out,  as  I  left  the 
salt  out  of  some  loaves  I  once  baked,  makes  the 
most  beautiful  appearing  loaf  of  bread  a  fail- 
ure. It  had  all  the  appearance  of  success,  till 
you  tasted  it! 

"Paraphrasing,"  says  Herbert  Spencer,  "an 
Eastern  fable,  we  may  say  that  in  the  house- 
hold of  knowledges  science  is  the  household 
drudge,  who  in  obscurity  hides  unrecognized 
perfections.     To  her  has  been  committed  all 


180  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

the  work;  by  her  skill,  intelligence  and  devo- 
tion, have  all  conveniences  and  gratifications 
been  obtained;  and  while  ceaselessly  minister- 
ing to  the  rest,  she  has  been  kept  in  the  back- 
ground, that  her  haughty  sisters  might  flaunt 
their  fripperies  in  the  eyes  of  the  world.  The 
parallel  holds  yet  further.  For  we  are  fast 
coming  to  the  denouement  when  the  positions 
will  be  changed;  and  while  these  haughty  sis- 
ters sink  into  merited  neglect,  Science,  pro- 
claimed as  highest  in  worth  and  beauty, 
will  reign  sui^reme."  This  certainly  goes  far 
enough,  and  probably  too  far.  But  there  is 
a  substantial  truth  here,  which  must  be  recog- 
nized very  early  in  life,  and  the  sooner  it  is  rec- 
ognized the  happier  and  more  effective  life 
will  be. 

The  real  beginning  point  for  the  scientific 
spirit  is  a  sort  of  wholesome  unbelief  in  mere 
appearances.  You  can  readily  mystify  a 
child,  as  I  often  did,  with  a  reflecting  mirror 
throwing  a  flashing  gleam  all  around  the  room, 
and  talking  about  the  flying  sunbeams.  But 
you  do  better  to  show  the  child  how  the  thing 
is  done,  and  how  light  plays  such  curious 
pranks,  and  how  reflections  come  to  make  such 
weird  appearances  as  they  often  do.  Such  a 
spirit  carefully  nurtured  will  make  any  child 
go  into  the  darkest  room,  which  it  has  kno\Mi 


SCIENCE  IN  GENERAL  181 

in  daylight,  with  no  more  fear  than  it  would  in 
the  daytime.  A  child  so  trained  will  stand 
perfectly  still,  watching  some  unusual  phe- 
nomenon, until  it  can  bring  all  its  previous  ex- 
periences to  bear  upon  it,  for  its  real  under- 
standing. This  habit  of  unbelief  leads  to  ex- 
pulsion of  fear.  This  is  what  you  do  when 
you  lead  a  very  little  child  up  to  a  very  big  dog, 
and  prove  to  it  that  it  has  nothing  to  fear,  that 
the  big  animal  only  wants  to  be  petted,  not  to 
do  any  harm.  It  is  only  by  such  trying  out 
that  we  ever  get  over  the  vast  mass  of  our  nat- 
ural fears  of  the  strange  and  unusual. 

"Ask  and  it  shall  be  given  unto  you,  seek 
and  ye  shall  find,  knock  and  it  shall  be  opened 
to  you,"  represents  the  real  beginning  of  the 
scientific  spirit,  and  doubtless  this  was  in  the 
Master's  mind  in  urging  his  hearers  to  en- 
deavor to  get  acquainted  with  the  higher  spir- 
itual processes  not  b/j  tcai/  of  conjecture  but 
by  way  of  experiment.  The  spirit  of  inquiry 
which  finds  out  or  seeks  to  find  out  all  there  is 
to  be  found  out  about  anything  and  everything 
is  the  primary  impulse  that  develops  in  a  sci- 
entific frame  of  mind.  It  is  not  mere  critical 
refusal  to  believe.  It  is  a  desire  to  know. 
Personally  I  believe  that  this  desire  to  know 
is  the  secret  of  concentration,  because  tlie  in- 
terest has  been  aroused,  and  is  held  to  the  sub- 


182  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

ject  in  hand,  by  the  desire  to  know  the  truth 
about  it,  and  this  makes  for  sustained  atten- 
tion and  effort.  IViis  habit  of  mind  is  the 
easiest  and  surest  way  known  to  me,  of  getting 
the  habit  of  concentrated  attention. 

II 

The  desire  to  know  the  truth  about  any- 
thing, and  a  critical  frame  of  mind  toward  it, 
brings  irresistibly  in  its  train  a  study  of  causes 
and  hence  familiarity  with  the  relation  of  cause 
and  effect.  Now  the  study  of  causes,  itself, 
has  a  very  bracing  effect  on  the  mental  life,  be- 
cause it  leads  naturally  to  the  question  as  to 
whether  this  or  that  cause,  could  or  would  have 
produced,  this  or  that  result.  This  leads  not 
only  to  the  examination  of  the  cause,  as  pro- 
ducing the  special  thing  to  be  explained,  but 
its  general  adequacy  to  produce  anything. 
Suppose  you  perform  some  slight-of-hand 
trick  with  a  handkerchief  with  your  little  three- 
year-old  child.  You  try  to  give  the  impres- 
sion that  it  drops  down  from  the  ceiling. 
Your  little  one  looks  up  and  around,  and  if 
you  watch  the  process,  you  can  see  him  coming 
to  the  conclusion  that  this  is  impossible,  be- 
cause he  sees  perfectly  clearly  that  the  implied 
process  could  not  have  taken  place,  and  hence 
it  begins  to  look  around  your  pockets,  or  seeks 


SCIENCE  IN  GENERAL  183 

your  other  hand,  or  tries  to  find  out  some  other 
real  and  possible  cause  for  what  he  has  seen. 
Now  of  course  you  can  let  the  child  find  out 
such  things  unaided.  But  I  think  it  hetter 
policy  to  take  such  occasions  to  show  how  opti- 
cal illusions  are  produced,  and  lead  the  child  to 
try  such  tricks  himself.  That  I  call  the  begin- 
ning of  the  scientific  spirit,  because  it  is  not 
merely  attracted  to  an  unusual  thing  to  know 
about  it,  as  a  matter  of  curiosity,  but  also  to 
seek  for  a  real  cause  of  the  thing  he  sees.  In 
scientific  circles  they  call  that  a  vera  causa. 

Again,  when  children  are  playing  hide  and 
seek,  and  they  stop  and  listen  for  the  voice  of 
the  hidden  playmate,  what  are  they  doing  but 
trying  to  determine  whence  the  sound  comes, 
and  so  to  the  discovery  of  the  hiding 
place?  \Vliat  children  thus  do  naturally  at 
play  should  become  a  habit  of  mind,  and  may 
readily  become  so  with  very  little  attention. 
You  can  teach  any  number  of  elementary 
truths  and  scientific  principles  to  very  young 
children  by  remembering  this  fact.  I  have 
often  asked  my  own  children,  and  other  chil- 
dren, who  have  lost  a  plaything,  to  stand  still 
and  try  to  recall,  step  by  step,  where  they  had 
been  since  they  last  saw  the  article  in  question. 
I  have  seen  them  gradually  lessen  the  area 
within  which  it  had  to  be,  by  balancing  partly, 


184  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

by  remembering  partly,  the  reasons  for  or 
against  a  given  place,  and  finally  go  straight 
to  the  article,  because,  by  what  was  strictly 
scientific  reasoning,  they  had  eliminated  all 
places  but  the  right  place. 

When  a  child  digs  up  the  roots  of  a  plant  to 
see  whether  they  are  growing  or  not,  when  it 
digs  out  a  seed  that  has  been  planted  to  find 
out  whether  it  has  begun  to  germinate  or  not, 
you  have  natural  manifestations  of  this  spirit. 
When  you  can  show  that  a  reasonable  time 
must  elapse  before  results  may  be  expected, 
and  when  you  can  bring  the  various  factors  in 
growth  to  the  understanding,  and  have  fixed 
observation  upon  them,  you  have  begun  to  cre- 
ate a  real  scientific  spirit.  There  is  no  rea- 
son why  this  process  should  not  be  applied  to 
all  kinds  of  things.  INIade  habitual,  when  the 
child  strikes  a  laboratory,  it  will  make  a 
use  of  the  laboratory  which  not  one  child  in  a 
thousand  makes  at  the  present  time.  But  the 
simple  truth  is  that  what  students  at  high 
school  age  now  do  under  direction  is  so  simple, 
and  so  elementary,  that  an  intelligent  parent, 
even  one  who  has  had  no  scientific  training, 
can  do  it  with  little  children,  if  only  they  can 
read.  I  have  taught  almost  all  that  high 
schools  generally  teach  about  physiolog}%  to 
little  children,  with  the  aid  of  a  manikin  and 


SCIENCE  IN  GENERAL  185 

pictures  of  the  human  bodj^  and  Httle  experi- 
ments with  themselves,  which  they  could  make 
and  did  make,  with  great  pleasure  and  amuse- 
ment to  themselves. 

Children  should  he  taught  to  search  for 
causes  of  things.  Here  I  am  reminded  again, 
that  many  persons  will  say  that  this  is  not  the 
thing  for  little  children,  and  that  it  tends  to  de- 
stroy the  illusions  and  innocent  delights  of 
children  in  "wondering."  All  I  have  to  say 
to  this  is,  that  most  of  the  healthy  children  I 
have  known  have  always  loved  their  own  crea- 
tions very  much  more  than  they  have  loved 
ready-made  things  thrust  upon,  or  supplied  to 
them.  And  I  believe  there  is  no  subject  un- 
der the  wide  heaven  in  which  a  child  will  not 
be  more  interested  to  work  out  the  result  itself 
than  to  have  somebody  work  it  out  for  him. 
And  the  search  for  causes  is  the  most  interest- 
ing exercise  of  the  human  mind  known.  That 
is  why  boys  like  to  "track"  an  imaginary  en- 
emy through  the  woods  and  over  the  fields  to 
his  "lair."  That  is  why  some  of  the  most  pop- 
ular games  are  games  like  hare  and  liounds, 
which  involve  pursuit  with  the  matching  of 
skill  in  the  matter  of  elusion  of  the  pursuers 
by  the  pursued.  All  these  things  arc  merely 
reminiscences  of  tlie  childhood  of  tlie  race, 
when  the  laws  of  the  mind  were  not  kno^^'n  and 


186  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

understood.  But  why  should  not  our  children 
begin  in  this  matter  where  we  left  off?  Why 
should  they  not  be  shown  how  water  becomes 
contaminated,  how  milk  becomes  bad,  how  all 
kinds  of  food  decay,  and  how  many  other 
things  take  place,  the  result  of  wliich  they  can 
plainly  see,  but  the  processes  of  which  seem  oc- 
cult and  which  need  only  a  little  intelhgent 
direction  and  possibly  the  occasional  use  of  a 
microscope  or  a  magnifying  glass,  to  reveal? 
For  a  child  to  learn  and  incorporate  into  its 
habitual  mental  life  the  principle  that  nothing 
happens  without  a  cause  is  a  very  great  gain. 
The  earlier  it  is  mastered  the  greater  the  gain. 

Ill 

What  has  just  been  said  will  show  the  child 
that  what  can  be  done  once  can  probably  be 
done  again.  That  comes  naturally  to  children 
who  see  anything  unusual  performed.  That 
was  the  reason  the  child  to  whom  I  showed 
what  you  could  do  with  a  common  mirror, 
in  making  sun  flashes  dance  all  around  the 
room,  instantly  seized  the  mirror  from  my 
hand,  and  tried  to  do  it  herself.  ^Miat 
that  means  is,  simply,  trying  the  e.vper- 
iment  herself.  Hence  experimentation  is 
connected  inseparably  tcith  the  genuine  sci- 
entific attitude.     What  the  child,  before  the 


SCIENCE  IN  GENERAL  187 

experiment  by  itself,  regards  wonderingly  as 
the  product  of  your  genius,  or  your  skill,  hav- 
ing performed  it  itself,  it  takes  out  of  the  re- 
gion of  wonder  and  places  in  the  categoiy  of 
proved  knowledge.  Of  course,  the  child  does 
not  always  know  this,  nor,  of  course,  does  it 
consciously  aim  at  this  end.  But  that  is  what 
it  really  does,  and  you  know  it,  though  the  child 
does  not.  But  every  time  this  is  done,  it 
breeds  the  belief  in  the  child  that  what  you  have 
done^  it  can  do,  and  this  is  an  important  ad- 
vance. It  leads  not  only  to  the  habit  of  finding 
causes,  but  to  the  habit  of  experimenting  with 
things  to  see  what  they  will  do  under  certain 
conditions.  I  remember  very  vividly  one  such 
"experiment"  which  made  an  impression  on 
my  mind,  which  has  never  been  eradicated. 
Some  building  operations  had  been  going  on 
in  our  vicinity,  while  I  was  a  very  small  boy, 
and  I  learned  for  the  first  time  that  unslacked 
lime,  if  you  put  it  in  water,  "boils."  That  in- 
terested me  very  much,  and  presently  I  got 
some  of  this  lime  and  put  it  into  a  bottle,  added 
some  water,  and  corked  it  up  very  tightly.  I 
watched  with  a  good  deal  of  pleasure  and  in- 
terest the  boiling  inside,  till  the  bottle  became 
so  hot  that  I  could  not  hold  it,  and  began  to 
be  afraid  as  to  what  would  happen.  I  hur- 
riedly sat  the  bottle  down  by  the  side  of  the 


188  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

new  building,  one,  by  the  way,  faced  with  very 
fine  bricks  of  special  mold  and  quality,  and 
ran  to  the  opposite  side  of  the  street.  In  a 
very  few  moments  the  bottle  burst,  that  is,  the 
cork  flew  out  and  the  boiling  lime  with  it,  and 
painted  a  most  interesting  picture  upon  the 
new  and  costly  brick  wall  before  which  I  stood! 
It  took  several  men  several  days  to  get  the 
stuff  off  from  those  new  bricks,  so  that  the 
marks  did  not  remain,  and  what  I  got  from  my 
parents,  who  had  to  pay  the  bill  for  the  dam- 
age done,  may  as  well  be  left  untold!  That 
was,  of  course,  an  undirected  experiment. 
But  many  others,  and  of  much  more  worth  and 
value  (none  could  be  more  interesting),  may 
be  made  under  direction,  which  may  have  thus 
great  educational  worth,  and  even  greater  psy- 
chological results. 

It  is  my  conviction  based  upon  a  great  deal 
of  careful  observation  that  many  of  the  so- 
called  mischievous  pranks  of  young  children 
is  nothing  more  than  the  desire  to  "try  out," 
otherwise  experiment,  with  things  they  have 
seen  other  people  do,  and  is  a  thoroughly 
sound  and  'worthy  activity  on  the  part  of  chil- 
dren. So  far  from  being  naughtiness,  it  is 
just  the  instinct,  upon  which  to  graft  a  sound 
principle  of  scientific  habit. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  this  sort  of  thing 


SCIENCE  IN  GENERAL  189 

will  destroy  the  sense  of  mystery  in  children, 
and  affect  the  imagination  unfavorably.  On 
the  contrary,  I  believe  it  rather  stimulates  the 
imagination  Jiealthfulhj,  because  it  takes  it  out 
of  the  region  where  it  is  merely  dreamy  specu- 
lation, which  weakens  will-power,  and  lifts  it 
into  regions  where  it  causes  the  exercise  of  the 
will  in  the  direction  of  real  knowledge.  Noth- 
ing in  modern  education  is  so  pitiful  as  just 
the  result  which  has  been  produced  in  so  many 
cases,  nameh%  dreamy  persons,  with  a  good 
deal  of  miscellaneous  knowledge  of  one  kind 
and  another,  but  with  clear  knowledge  about 
nothing  in  particular.  E.vperiment  tends  to 
destroy  this  kind  of  thing  because,  as  already 
stated,  it  takes  nothing  for  granted,  and  asks, 
continually,  the  why  and  the  wherefore  of 
everything.  An  incidental,  but  wholly  worth 
while,  result  of  the  experimenting  habit  is  that 
it  provides  wholesome  occupation  for  children. 
When  tired  of  one  kind  of  exercise,  the  teach- 
ing parent  can  readily  provide  some  other  kind 
which  will  both  interest  and  relieve,  but  the 
process  of  mind  training  goes  on  all  the  time. 
And  this  experimenting  habit  can  go  on  all 
the  year  round,  with  plants,  with  animal  pets, 
with  simple  machinery  in  physics  and  chem- 
istry, with  physiology,  and  all  kinds  of  things 
which  are  the  raw  materials,  so  to  speak,  of 


190  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

scientific  knowledge.  Of  course,  you  under- 
stand that  you  choose  shnple  things  and  deal 
with  them  simply,  but  you  do  not  deal  with 
them  without  dealing  with  them  accurately 
and  in  scientific  terms.  That  is  the  special 
feature  of  this  form  of  intensive  treatment. 
You  are  preparing  the  soil  in  which  real  learn- 
ing may  be  planted  at  a  much  earlier  period 
than  is  usual,  because  the  principles  are  under- 
stood and  so  many  things  do  not  have  to  he 
unlearned  because  wrong  ideas  have  been 
planted  in  the  subsoil. 

rv 

One  other,  and  perhaps  the  most  important, 
thing  in  dealing  with  science  in  general  is  the 
inoculation  of  the  habit  of  measurement. 
Substantially  the  whole  of  science  rests  upon 
this  principle,  measurement.  In  former  days, 
the  housewife  made  her  bread,  and  could  make 
it  herself,  and  after  long  practice  her  daugh- 
ter could  get  the  "knack"  of  making  it  as  her 
mother  did.  But  it  remained  a  ''knack'* 
Nowadays  we  measure  the  materials,  and  any- 
body Xi^ho  can  measure  accurately  can  get  to- 
gether thp  materials  as  well  as  anybody  else. 
The  same  is  true  of  many  other  things.  What 
makes  a  cook-book  so  valuable  is  that  the 
young  wife  can  take  it,  and  if  she  knows  how 


SCIENCE  IN  GENERAL  191 

to  measure,  she  can  get  the  same  result  as  any- 
body else,  because  she  has  her  formula  before 
her.  All  the  sciences  have  practically  grown 
out  of  this  fact.  The  measurement  of  the 
movement  of  the  heavenly  bodies  has  taught 
us  about  the  seasons,  and  so  have  affected  our 
crops  and  many  other  things.  Measurement 
has  given  us  all  the  applied  sciences,  and  if  you 
teach  a  child  not  to  guess  at  things^  but  meas- 
ure them,  you  have  taught  it  the  greatest  prin- 
ciple in  all  education. 

Teach  the  child  to  measure,  dry  measure, 
liquid  measure,  length,  breadth,  thickness, 
bulk,  all  kinds  of  things,  to  note  resemblances 
and  differences,  and  equivalents,  and  the  like. 
That  is  real  scientific  training.  No  end  of 
pleasure  can  be  gotten  out  of  time  measure- 
ments and  weight  measurements,  and  the  rela- 
tion of  bulk  to  weight  and  the  like.  I  had 
great  pleasure  myself  in  weighing  all  kinds  of 
things  to  make  one  pound,  with  my  own  chil- 
dren, and  the  difference  in  bulk  of  the  various 
things  weighed  was  a  great  delight  to  the  chil- 
dren. You  can  do  all  these  things  without  ex- 
pensive machinery,  and  with  common  house- 
hold objects  and  substances.  You  may  add 
somewhat  to  your  own  knowledge  by  doing 
these  things.  By  this  means,  you  can  teach 
the  metric  system  to  a  small  child,  and  you  can 


192  TEACIIIxXG  IN  THE  HOME 

tcacli  all  the  ordinary  forms  of  measure,  with- 
out the  child  ever  knowing  when  or  where  it 
learned  them.  You  can  teach  the  whole  deci- 
mal system,  and,  as  I  think,  you  can  teach  per- 
centage and  some  other  things  supposed  to  be 
beyond  the  understanding  of  little  children. 
But  aside  from  that,  measure  everything. 
Weigh  everything.  Compare  everything  with 
everything  else  by  means  of  accurate  measure- 
ment. 

You  can  do  yourself  and  the  child  a  serv- 
ice by  w-eighing  everything  you  buy,  or  meas- 
uring it,  if  you  get  it  by  measure,  and  finding 
out  a  great  many  things  that  have  a  moral 
bearing,  and  possibly  have  some  relation  to  the 
question  of  income  and  expenditure.  Re- 
cently, in  Boston,  some  hundreds  of  false 
scales  were  seized  by  the  city  authorities,  which 
shows  that  a  great  many  people  are  not  get- 
ting what  they  pay  for.  You  may  do  your 
child  an  important  economic  service  entirely 
apart  from  the  educational  service  by  incul- 
cating this  habit.  The  American  people  are 
notoriously  wasteful.  A  great  deal  of  it  will 
be  stopped  by  the  general  adoption  of  this 
method.  I  have  heard  of  some  very  funny 
stories  of  discoveries  which  children  made  in 
this  manner,  which  had  entirely  escaped  their 
parents,  because  their  curiosity  to  know  what 


SCIENCE  IN  GENERAL  193 

certain  things  weighed  made  it  clear  that  there 
was  need  for  important  revision  of  the  weigh- 
ing apparatus  in  the  neighboring  stores!  In 
this,  as  in  some  other  things,  a  little  child  shall 
lead  them! 

All  the  sciences  require  exactitude.  That 
is  what  makes  them  science.  The  elimination 
of  personality,  making  the  knowledge  to  rest 
not  upon  "knack"  or  peculiar  skill  or  aptitude, 
but  upon  verifiable  measurements,  that  is  what 
makes  science.  You  can  teach  that  to  very 
young  children,  and  most  important  teaching 
it  is.  It  is  really  solving  the  practical  prob- 
lems in  this  way,  which  makes  for  the  only  ef- 
fective science  teaching  even  after  the  child 
has  reached  high  school  age.  And  I  believe 
that  much  of  the  repugnance  to  mathematics, 
though,  as  I  have  stated  before,  I  do  not  be- 
lieve the  pure  mathematics  have  much  educa- 
tional value,  would  disappear  with  the  general 
adoption  of  this  habit  for  children.  It  human- 
izes figures  and  measurements,  and  because  it 
deals  with  real  things  it  is  never  out  of  the  re- 
gion of  active  interest  and  pleasure.  Taken 
in  connection  with  geographical  study,  it  can 
be  made  most  fascinating  and  full  of  historical 
interest  as  well.  You  see  all  these  things  are 
linked  togetlier  in  such  a  way  that  it  makes 
little  difference  where  you  begin  if  you  keep 


is»i  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

in  mind  tliat  you  must  deal  with  real  knowl- 
edge in  a  real  way. 

It  does  not  require  much  discernment  either, 
to  see  that  this  kind  of  thing  prepares  the  way 
for  economics  as  well  as  for  other  things. 
Supply  and  demand  can  be  brought  easily  into 
the  field  of  vision  here,  always,  of  course,  deal- 
ing with  things  that  are  related  to  the  child's 
environment.  We  found  out,  for  example, 
that  grinding  the  coffee  for  each  meal,  instead 
of  having  it  ground  in  bulk  at  the  store,  re- 
duced the  consumption  of  coffee  in  our  house- 
hold exactly  one-half,  under  ordinary  condi- 
tions. Incidentally  we  had  better  coffee! 
But  that  discovery  was  not  only  interesting , 
hut  economically  worth  xjchile.  The  children, 
under  their  mother's  instruction,  followed  the 
progress  of  foodstuffs  through  all  their  rami- 
fications, till  they  finally  became  what  they 
called  quite  accurately  the  "ghost"  in  the  shape 
of  the  flavor  of  the  bones  of  a  roast,  for  exam- 
ple, in  the  final  soup!  Talk  about  home  eco- 
nomics! We  had  the  ordinary  home  econom- 
ics school  beaten  a  mile!  But  the  enchanting 
thing  about  all  this  was,  that  we  had  innumer- 
able household  jokes  and  endless  mirth  over 
what  would  seem  ordinarily  to  be  the  most 
mirthless  transaction  imaginable.  Do  not  im- 
agine that  you  must  learn  all  the  jargon  of 


SCIENCE  IN  GENERAL  105 

science,  so  called,  before  you  can  do  these 
things.  Just  utilize  the  knowledge  which  you 
have,  and  make  it  straightforward  and  clear 
as  you  go  along,  and  the  rest  will  ordinarily 
take  care  of  itself.  When  you  don't  know 
about  the  thing  you  are  deahng  with,  go  to 
the  library  and  get  some  book  on  the  subject, 
or  consult  a  good  encyclopaedia,  and  you  will 
not  only  learn  what  you  are  seeking,  but  very 
likely  a  good  many  other  things  beside! 

Let  me  caution  you  again  against  being  de- 
terred from  doing  these  things  because  they 
seem  alien  to  childhood.  A  few  days  ago  a 
friend  of  ours  brought  in  a  nine-months-old 
baby.  By  turning  on  and  off  various  electric 
lights  with  that  child,  I  proved  to  myself  how 
a  little  care  in  such  matter,  every  day,  will  se- 
cure highly  concentrated  attention.  I  did 
some  such  experiments  with  my  own  children, 
but  not  very  extensively.  I  did  not,  of  course, 
know  then  what  I  know  now.  I  know  now 
that  you  can  teach  a  child  of  ten  all  the  chem- 
istry and  more,  than  most  students  know  at 
college  entrance. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

PHYSIOLOGY 

Under  this  caption  I  suggest  the  inclusion 
of  many  other  subjects,  and  have  chosen  this 
as  the  most  convenient  way  of  getting  at  them 
all.  There  are  so  many  things  which  come 
into  the  study  of  physiology  that  it  may 
well  be  made  the  medium  through  which  you 
may  teach  other  sciences  which  will  have  larger 
uses  later  on.  It  is  presumed  before  you  get 
to  the  matters  which  I  am  discussing  in  this 
chapter  that  you  will  have  informed  yourself 
on  details  by  reading  some  good  text-book 
which  you  will  not  think  of  discussing  with  the 
children,  and  which  will  only  affect  the  form 
and  method  with  which  you  bring  them  to  the 
children.  One  of  these  is  the  matter  of  sex. 
/  believe  tliorouglily  in  sex  instruction,  and  I 
believe  in  giving  it  and  getting  through  with  it 
long  before  the  adolescent  period.  With  very 
little  children  you  can  discuss  all  these  things 
carefully  and,  I  may  add,  prai/erfuUi/,  so  that 
there  will  be  no  disturbance  when  the  new  life 

196 


PHYSIOLOGY  197 

comes,  and  there  will  be  other  things  to  think 
about,  because  you  have  provided  the  materials 
of  thought.  I  have  noted  in  the  bibliography 
a  volume  or  two  which  I  think  parents  may 
read  with  profit  on  this  subject,  and  then  trans- 
mit the  knowledge  to  their  little  children,  and 
the?i,  having  taught  it,  leave  it.  It  is  not  a 
subject  for  high  degree  of  concentration  of 
thought  by  either  children  or  adults. 

But  there  are  other  things  which  may  be  in- 
cluded and  taught  here.  The  elements  of 
chemistry,  for  example,  come  in  here  very  nat- 
urally, because  the  body  is  composed  of  many 
elements,  and  the  vocabulary  of  chemistry  is 
an  interesting  one  which  lends  itself  to  much 
and  varied  teaching  in  many  ways  on  various 
subjects.  It  recurs  in  the  study  of  botany, 
and  zoolog}^  Then  again  here  you  get  in  your 
mathematics  of  one  kind  and  another.  This 
is  where  I  should  get  in  my  elementary  arith- 
metic as  measurements  have  to  be  recorded. 
Very  well,  learn  linear  measure  and  square 
measure  and  the  metric  system  in  connection 
with  the  measurements  as  they  are  made,  and 
thus  take  away  the  bareness  and  the  stupidity 
with  which  so  much  mathematical  study  is  sur- 
rounded. Here,  too,  I  would  learn  the  multi- 
plication tables,  though  these  I  would  master 
by  singing  them ;  of  course,  the  figures  having 


108  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

been  mastered  and  simple  numbers  having 
been  explained. 

Here,  too,  I  would  teach  my  physics,  that  is, 
so  much  of  it  as  is  needful,  and  this  again  will 
have  significance  later  on  just  as  the  measure- 
ments and  the  tables  will.  All  these  things  go 
hand  in  hand,  because  you  are  fertilizing  and 
are  not  trying  to  make  experts,  but  just  nat- 
uralizing your  child  in  the  materials  and  termi- 
nology of  knowledge,  so  that  it  will  presently 
have  the  all-powerful  tool  of  grappling  with 
any  subject  to  which  its  mind  is  set,  and  to- 
ward which  it  is  directed  to  work. 

By  way  of  illustration,  take  the  chemical 
terms  OiVygeii,  nitrogen,  hydrogen,  carbon, 
chlorine,  sulphur,  phosphorus,  for  one  group; 
then  take  air,  about  which  you  can  manufac- 
ture about  as  many  stories  as  you  please,  with 
every  sort  of  illustration;  or,  take  the  metallic 
elements  which  are  found  in  the  human  body, 
like  sodium,  potassium,  calcium,  magnesium, 
and  iron;  then  again  take  water,  as  related  to 
the  body,  or  the  gases,  like  ammonia  and  car- 
bonic acid  gas,  or  the  various  salts,  or  the  or- 
ganic substances  like  jjroteids,  carbo-hydrates 
and  fats;  all  these  things  form  a  natural  and 
thoroughly  interesting  beginning  of  the  study 
of  physiology,  though  many  of  them  are  not 
less  needful  in  other  sciences. 


PHYSIOLOGY  199 

Some  one  will  say,  of  course,  How  can  you 
deal  with  these  things  with  small  children? 
Well,  the  most  natural  question  of  a  child  is, 
"What  am  I  made  of?"  and  then  your  opening 
is  secured,  and  far  back  of  the  physiological 
question  itself,  you  can  introduce  all  these 
other  interesting  subjects.  It  is  not  my  pur- 
pose to  go  into  them  here,  because  that  is  a  mat- 
ter for  your  assimilation  through  some  good 
tesct-hooli.  But  when  you  yourself  have  got 
this  information  and  made  it  your  own, 
you  will  have  a  wonderland  to  introduce  your 
child  to  in  introducing  it  to  the  study  of  itself. 
In  this  way  the  interest  in  its  own  body  and 
its  own  processes  is  detached  from  the  intro- 
spective emotionalism,  which  often  results  in 
trouble,  and  reveals  the  human  frame  as  a 
wonderful  composition  of  things  which  are 
found  elsewhere  than  there,  and  the  correlation 
of  man  with  the  rest  of  nature  becomes  easy 
and  fascinating.  You  can  readily  use  the 
chemistry  of  common  things  to  illustrate  the 
power  and  use  of  these  various  substances,  and 
make  j'^our  bread  making,  your  house  lighting, 
your  vacuum  cleaner,  and  your  ventilation, 
subjects  for  much  instruction  and  interesting 
experimentation.  You  can  teach  exact  meas- 
urements by  the  shoes  the  children  wear,  the 
garments  with  which  they  are  clothed,  the  cir- 


200  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

cumfercnce  and  diameter  and  sliape  and  all 
sorts  of  things,  of  tlie  hats  on  the  heads,  and 
even  the  materials  of  whieh  all  these  are  made. 
It  all  helps  and  it  is  all  scientific  knowledge. 
It  has  a  very  practical  use,  too,  because  it 
opens  up  the  economic  worth  of  these 
things  and  teaches  discrimination.  That  saves 
money ! 

How  practical  and  how  immediate  this  sort 
of  thing  really  is,  was  recently  illustrated  by 
an  exciting  discussion  in  the  Massachusetts 
Legislature  on  the  subject  of  calcium  in  bread, 
and  for  days,  the  papers  were  full  of  discussion 
as  to  the  rightfulness  or  wrongfulness  of  the 
use  by  a  certain  large  bread-making  firm  of 
this  element  in  its  bread.  There  was  all  sorts 
of  expert  testimony,  all  very  interesting,  but 
most  people  had  not  the  slightest  appreciation 
of  the  real  merits  of  the  discussion,  because  so 
few  of  them  knew  even  a  very  little  about  the 
human  body,  or  the  chemistry  of  bread-mak- 
ing. And  only  a  very  little  knowledge  would 
have  been  very  enlightening  and  saved  a  great 
deal  of  nonsense  being  talked  on  the  subject. 

Then  again,  you  will  find  it  useful  to  get  a 
small  manikin,  and  while  it  is  not  at  first  sight 
an  easy  task  to  take  the  human  frame  apart 
and  get  much  fun  out  of  it,  j^et  with  healthy 
children  this  is  exactly  what  they  will  enjoy. 


PHYSIOLOGY  201 

because  they  do  it  with  every  other  animal  that 
comes  into  their  hands,  and  taking  the  stuffing 
out  of  dolls  has  become  one  of  the  regular  hab- 
its of  children.  A  manikin  or  suitable  pic- 
tures of  the  human  body  will  afford  vast  inter- 
est to  children.  Of  course  you  Mill  choose 
your  materials,  and  you  will  choose  your  times 
and  seasons. 

You  can  thus  make  scientific,  what  parents 
have  to  do  and  always  do  in  any  case.  Habits 
of  cleanliness  about  the  teeth,  the  nose,  the 
hands,  the  face,  and  the  feet,  the  care  of  the 
nails,  and  such  like  matters,  may  be  discussed 
and  made  the  subjects  of  direct  and  thor- 
oughly accurate  instruction.  If,  as  some  al- 
lege, the  care  of  the  teeth  has  so  much  to  do 
with  the  future  health  and  happiness  of  the 
race,  and  I  do  not  doubt  tliat  it  has,  why  not 
go  into  the  business  of  showing  how  the  teeth 
grow,  what  they  are  made  of,  what  elements 
in  food  go  to  make  them,  how  they  decay,  what 
makes  them  give  trouble,  and  how  they  look 
not  only  on  the  outside  but  also  on  the  inside? 
Think  what  an  interesting  study  can  be  made 
of  the  ears,  and  how  they  transmit  sounds,  and 
how  they  furnish  the  model  for  many  other  in- 
struments tliat  transmit  sound!  Just  look 
into  the  subject  a  little,  and  find  how  your 
telephone,  your  piano,  your  plionograph,  are 


202  Ti: ACHING  IN  THE  HOxME 

all  related  to  the  ear,  and  you  will  have  all  the 
material  you  want  for  teaehing  all  that  needs 
to  be  known  to  insure  care  of  the  ears  forever 
after ! 

While  tlie  children  are  playing  with  clay  or 
in  the  sand  let  them  make  impressions  or  mod- 
els of  their  own  fingers  or  hands,  and  notice  the 
details,  and  perhaps  draw  them  and  keep  the 
drawings  for  further  use.  By  and  by  you  can 
take  other  organs.  I  cannot  myself  under- 
stand wh\^  a  child  which  sees  a  chicken  dis- 
embowelled cannot  have  every  organ  ex- 
plained, and  the  similar  organ  in  the  human 
body,  if  there  is  one,  also  explained.  Look 
into  the  history  of  special  organs  about  which 
the  child  will  hear  very  soon,  like  the  tonsils, 
and  get  a  page  out  of  the  evolution  of  the  race ! 
You  can  easily  get  a  model,  or  at  least 
pictures  of  the  eye  and  its  operations,  and  this 
will  be  of  the  very  greatest  interest,  and  should 
not  only  give  them,  but  you,  a  good  deal  of 
material  for  reflection  and  discussion.  But 
here  again  you  will  keep  to  the  ecVact  tenni- 
iiologij  and  not  let  yourself  talk  do^Mi.  The 
fact  that  you  are  handling  concrete  things  will 
carry  along  some  very  hard  words.  And  they 
will  stick.  I  once  blew  up  a  pair  of  lungs  for 
some  young  people.  Again  and  again  after 
that  they  clamored  for  the  "lung  story."     And 


PHYSIOLOGY  20S 

I  think  I  taught  them  most  of  the  habits  of  cor- 
rect breathing  by  that  means. 

Through  your  talks  and  lessons  about  the 
eye,  the  ear,  and  the  nose,  you  can  open  the 
way  to  the  discussion  of  the  nervous  system, 
and  this  again,  as  almost  any  figure  of  the 
nervous  system  will  show  you,  affords  ready- 
made  materials  not  only  for  teaching  about  the 
nervous  system  itself,  but  many  miscellaneous 
and  interesting  things  about  the  nerves.  This 
is  the  place  where  you  can  show  how  the 
strength  is  conserved,  and  lay  the  foundations 
for  the  kind  of  self-understanding  which  i)re- 
vents  nervous  breakdowns.  We  talk  more 
about  them  and  have  more  nervous  troubles  in 
America,  so  far  as  my  observation  goes,  than 
anywhere  else  in  the  world.  There  is  a  very 
great  deal  of  absurd  talk  about  the  "nervous" 
wear  and  tear  among  children,  and  much  there 
is,  but  it  is  not  due  to  work  and  even  less  due  to 
natural  defects  of  ordinary  children.  But  it 
does  not  take  much  to  break  down  the  nervous 
organization,  if  it  is  stupidly  dealt  with,  and 
what  is  often  lacking,  is  intelligent  coopera- 
tion between  the  subject  of  it  and  those  who 
have  the  care  and  oversight  of  children.  When 
any  such  smash-up  comes  in  it  is  at  once  at- 
tributed to  overwork,  which  is  usually  not  the 
case  at  all.     The  amount  of  hard  labor  even 


204  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

little  children  can  endure  is  surprising.  This 
does  not,  of  course,  apply  to  defective  children 
or  children  with  some  organic  difficulty.  But 
in  any  case,  by  this  instruction  you  can  make 
your  child  almost  immune  from  nervous 
troubles  by  giving  it  intelligent  instruction  as 
to  how  the  nervous  system  works,  and  teaching 
it  to  recognize  symptoms  when  they  occur. 

Here  again  you  will  be  told  that  a  child 
should  not  be  made  to  think  about  these  things. 
But  my  reply  is,  that  it  will  meet  them  at  every 
turn,  in  nervous  people,  or  people  who  think 
they  are  nervous,  and  should  be  made  to  look 
critically  on  these  things,  and  note  its  own  re- 
sources and  expenditures  in  an  elementary 
way.  This  is  the  method  by  which  you  can 
train  a  child  to  school  itself  for  emergencies. 
A  good  portion  of  life  is  made  up  of  meeting 
emergencies.  I  mean  physical  emergencies. 
The  child  should  be  trained  to  meet  them.  If 
it  knows  the  digestive  arrangements  even  in  a 
simple  way,  if  it  knows  how  fatigue  comes 
about,  if  it  knows  how  recuperation  is  secured, 
if  it  knows  how  to  wait  and  watch  instead  of 
worrying  and  weeping,  some  of  the  most  im- 
portant lessons  in  life  have  been  learned.  This 
is  the  time  to  do  it.  You  can  teach  all  these  les- 
sons as  j'ou  discuss  the  organs  of  the  body,  their 
functions    and    habits,    and    w^hat    influences 


PHYSIOLOGY  205 

them,  and  what  their  dangers  are.  It  is  aston- 
ishing lioio  much  an  intelligent  child  thus  in- 
structed can  help  its  own  convalescence  in 
times  when  sickness  comes.  Any  hospital  su- 
perintendent will  tell  you  that  the  training  of 
the  child  in  this  way  makes  all  the  difference  be- 
tween a  speedy  and  satisfactory  recovery  of  a 
sick  child,  and  the  slow,  unsatisfactory  advance 
of  one  not  so  trained.  It  may  mean  hfe  or 
death! 

Simple,  but  not  unscientific  on  that  ac- 
count, aids  for  injury  can  be  taught  at  such 
times.  The  use  of  antiseptics  and  their  effects 
can  be  made  second  nature,  a  thing  which  a 
good  many  doctors  have  not  yet  learned.  In 
fact,  you  can  through  this  study  train  your 
child  so  that  its  entire  attitude  toward  medi- 
cal science  and  medical  practice  will  be  directed 
by  it,  and  what  is  of  tlie  greatest  impor- 
tance of  all,  you  can  make  it  absolutely  im- 
mune to  the  quack  appeals  of  one  kind  and 
another  with  which  the  whole  land  is  filled.  If 
you  accomplish  nothing  more  than  this,  it  is 
worth  while.  But  you  will  do  more,  because 
you  will  lead  it  to  self-understanding  and 
by  and  by  to  a  correct  interpretation  of  its 
own  symptoms,  so  that  any  difficulty  which 
does  come,  in  spite  of  care  and  preventive  ef- 
fort, is  diagnosed,  and  thus  the  restoration  may 


206  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

be  very  much  more  speedy  and  satisfactory. 
Do  not  let  ifourself  think  this  is  Ijeyojid  a  young 
child.  The  only  thing  that  makes  you  think 
so  is,  that  we  have  all  hitherto  neglected  it. 
There  are  whole  chapters  of  medical  knowl- 
edge which  can  be  thus  taught  and  should  be 
taught.  Quackery  thrives  on  ignorance.  If 
you  make  the  soil,  the  disease  will  surely  grow. 
What  you  have  thus  done  about  nerves  you 
may  do  about  hones  and  muscles.  The  order 
does  not  matter  much.  Take  the  thing  which 
comes  first  in  a  natural  way,  but  if  you  can 
get  a  small  skeleton  of  any  animal  you  have 
your  work  cut  out  for  you.  Sometimes  there 
is  a  museum  at  hand,  which  may  be  visited, 
and  the  specimens  studied.  Learn  the  names 
of  some  of  the  more  important  bones,  and 
names  of  all  the  classes  of  hones.  They  will 
be  useful  in  your  study  of  English  and  Latin. 
Take  every  term  you  use,  first  of  all  as  a  tcord, 
and  get  all  the  information  you  can  out  of  it 
that  way,  before  you  go  into  its  special  and 
limited  use  in  this  science  or  any  science. 
Your  lesson  always  begins  with  word  study, 
no  matter  what  your  subject  is.  Hence,  your 
dictionary  is  always  at  hand.  You  can  take 
the  turkey  or  the  chicken  you  have  had  for  din- 
ner, and  have  the  bones  carefully  cleansed,  and 
then  put  them  together,  which  is  a  very  in- 


PHYSIOLOGY  207 

teresting  exercise.  You  can  do  the  same  with 
a  rabbit  or  any  other  small  animal. 

A  skull  is  a  most  interesting  object,  and  one 
the  handling  of  which  will  have  some  sugges- 
tive results.  Its  use  in  symbolism  and  litera- 
ture may  make  it  one  of  the  most  interesting 
objects  imaginable,  strange  as  that  seems  at 
first  sight.  In  fact,  this  is  true  of  the  skele- 
ton generally.  You  only  need  to  let  a  child 
see  how  the  ribs  are  fastened  to  the  spinal  col- 
umn, and  get  a  good  notion  of  how  the  human 
frame  is  put  together,  to  find  yourself  flooded 
with  all  kinds  of  questions  which  it  will  tax  all 
your  skill  and  ingenuity  to  answer.  And  you 
must  link  all  this  tcith  concrete  tilings.  When 
you  hear  food  values  talked  about  in  domestic 
science  lectures,  and  the  like,  immediately  ap- 
ply that  knowledge  through  this  study,  and 
thus  make  the  common  foods  tell  their  story 
in  scientific  terms.  Too  academic  and  remote, 
I  hear  somebody  say?  Well,  take  up  your 
newspaper  or  magazine  of  only  recent  date, 
and  see  it  discussed  with  reference  to  Ger- 
many's food  supply,  and  you  will  see  what  I 
mean.  No  knowledge  is  alien  to  you.  Be- 
cause it  is  yours,  it  is  also  the  natural  posses- 
sion of  j'^our  child! 

While  you  are  on  the  subject  you  may  take 
along  other  very  practical  matters  which  have 


208  TKACIIING  IX   THE   HOME 

scientific  import.  Let  us  say  you  are  discuss- 
ing tlie  heart.  Here  again  the  literary  impli- 
cations of  your  subject  will  furnish  the  ma- 
terial for  preparation  for  teaching.  Glance 
through  your  Bible  and  your  "Familiar  Quo- 
tations" for  passages  about  the  heart.  Now, 
of  course,  you  know  that  when  the  Bible  uses 
the  word  heart  it  does  not  mean  the  physiologi- 
cal organ,  because  it  was  not  known  as  mc 
know  it,  and  there  was  nothing  known  about 
the  circulation  of  the  blood,  and  the  only  les- 
sons to  be  derived  are  moral  lessons.  But 
nevertheless,  the  central  importance  of  the  ac- 
tion of  the  heart  gives  you  your  material. 
But  you  can  teach  such  things  as  the  action 
of  the  pulse,  and  the  circulation  of  the  Mood 
and  blood  pressure,  and  a  host  of  other  things 
which  will  explain  descriptions  which  will  oc- 
cur in  classical  literature,  when  the  modern  sci- 
entific knowledge  was  not  in  existence.  A 
clinical  thermometer  will  teach  a  good  many 
things,  and  a  clinical  chart  will  help.  This 
also  will  aid  in  bringing  to  the  front  all  sorts 
of  questions  which  it  will  be  your  privilege,  if 
3'ou  do  not  already  know,  to  find  out  and  im- 
part. Do  not  fear,  the  questions  will  come, 
and  the  only  issue  is  whether  you  will  have  the 
material.     The  same  is  true  about  the  lungs, 


PHYSIOLOGY  209 

and  if  you  can  get  a  pair,  either  a  human  lung 
or  that  of  some  animal,  and  blow  it  up  and 
show  how  it  works,  so  much  the  better. 

By  these  lessons  you  are  showing  how  the 
organs  of  the  vertebrates  and  mammals  gener- 
ally w^ork  analogously,  and  you  will  more  and 
more  ally  the  thought  of  the  human  body  with 
the  physical  structure  of  animals  generally, 
and  when  it  comes  to  biological  matters,  espe- 
cially sex  and  reproduction,  you  have  come  by 
a  road  which  makes  the  approach  not  personal, 
but  scientific,  impersonal  and  natural.  A 
writer  on  this  subject  says  that  "the  questions 
of  the  child  should  be  answered  frankh^  meet- 
ing the  intellectual  needs  of  the  child  just  so 
far  as  they  are  felt;  the  information  about  re- 
production should  not  be  abstract  generaliza- 
tions, but  should  be  related  to  the  child — as  his 
chickens,  Jiis  kittens,  babies  of  his  own  ac- 
quaintance. Broad  generalizations  are  not 
usually  necessary.  If  this  period  is  properly 
dealt  with,  much  of  the  vicious  information 
may  be  anticipated  and  rendered  less  harmful. 
A  sense  of  partnership  with  his  parents  in  this 
knowledge  is  valuable.  The  average  child 
learns  more  during  these  years  (from  four  to 
seven)  than  at  any  other  period  of  equal  length 
in  his  life.     INIuch  will  be  gained  if  the  sex 


210  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

facts  can  take  their  place  normally  and  with- 
out shock  in  this  growing  knowledge."  ^ 

Here  the  mother  should  be  the  teacher  mani- 
festly. And  because  this  period  is  so  full  of 
power,  because  so  much  is  acquired  in  it,  you 
can  readily  imagine  why  it  is  necessary  to  get 
this  important  kind  of  knowledge  so  mixed 
with  other  kinds  of  kiwvcledge  that  its  imper- 
sonal and  scientific  character  will  operate  to 
take  this  special  matter  out  of  the  field  of  self- 
consciousness,  through  which  much  of  the 
trouble  usually  comes.  Do  not  let  it  get  spe- 
cialized in  a  way  which  separates  it  from  other 
knowledge.  Keep  it  in  the  region  where  you 
can  readily  match  any  personal  allusions  by 
illustrations  from  some  other  field,  and  for  this 
purpose  your  botany  and  zoology  will  prove 
very  helpful.  This  same  author  repeatedly 
urges,  what  I  have  said  so  frequently  through- 
out this  volume,  that  you  must  he  sure  not  to 
use  nicknames  or  vulgar  terms,  hut  scientific 
ones,  which  keep  the  matter  in  the  region  of 
intellectual  acquisition.  The  literary  treat- 
ment of  the  subject  will  supply  all  the  neces- 
sities for  adorning  and  embroidering  the 
theme. 

The  habits  of  other  mammalia,  like  calves  or 
kittens,  feeding,  will  supply  many  suggestions 

1  Biology  of  Sex,  Galloway,  p.  12. 


PHYSIOLOGY  211 

for  the  relation  of  the  child  to  the  mother,  and 
from  these  the  more  intimate  relation  can 
easily  be  suggested.  Plants  also,  and  more  es- 
pecially, will  suggest  the  reproductive  relation 
and  the  transition  in  thought  from  one  to  the 
other,  it  has  been  observed,  is  not  difficult. 
All  such  teaching  should  habitually  be  linked 
with  moral  instruction  of  some  sort,  and  this 
followed  speedily  with  some  sort  of  moral  ex- 
action, a  specific  duty  of  some  kind,  as  filial 
duty  and  obedience  and  obligation  resting  on 
nurture  and  care. 

Experiments  with  very  little  children,  ba- 
bies, in  fact,  in  this  field,  will  be  a  very  inter- 
esting and  helpful  preparation  for  your  later 
work,  because  you  will  see  some  relations  made 
clear  which  are  not  so  apparent  later  on.  In 
these  you  will  discover  the  relation  of  the  hu- 
man animal  to  his  remote  ancestors.  Every- 
body knows  the  power  of  a  baby's  clutch. 
That  surely  is  a  reminiscence  of  an  earlier 
stage  of  development.  The  same  thing  is  true 
of  its  wriggling  toes.  You  can  watch  the 
change  in  the  difference  between  the  size  of 
the  baby's  nose  when  born,  and  its  jaw,  and 
how  differently  they  look  a  little  later  on.  I 
found  it  a  most  amusing  experiment  to  let  my 
little  children  play  with  colored  yarn  balls,  and 
note  their  predilections  for  one  color  or  an- 


212  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

other.  Over  tlie  crib  of  one  of  my  ehildren 
when  a  baby,  I  placed  a  mirror  in  which  it 
could  view  itself  at  full  length,  and  thus  I  ob- 
served the  child's  discovery  of  its  various  parts 
from  the  waving  of  hands  and  the  wriggling 
of  toes  and  legs.  Sometimes  I  placed  a  light 
by  the  side  of  the  crib,  and  directed  the  gaze  of 
the  baby  at  the  shadows  of  itself  and  its  hands, 
and  once  I  produced  an  electric  effect,  when 
the  baby,  crying  naughtily,  desiring  to  be 
taken  up  when  it  ought  to  have  been  going  to 
sleep,  as  I  surprised  it  into  seeing  itself  as  it 
looked  in  the  mirror,  while  thus  crying! 
Never  was  amazement  and  chagrin  more  abso- 
lutely pictured,  and  we  had  a  great  deal  of  fun 
out  of  it.  These  and  many  such  experiments 
which  will  only  occur  to  you,  while  the  baby 
is  in  its  bath,  in  which,  it  will  often  show  that 
it  has  come  out  of  a  fluid  medium  and  has  a 
history,  which  involves  swimming,  a  long  dis- 
tance back  in  the  story  of  the  evolution  of  the 
race.  Indeed  a  well  known  athletic  instructor 
says  that  if  a  new  born  baby  is  put  into  a 
proper  liquid  medium  it  tcill  swim.  I  never 
tried  this,  but  I  have  often  been  struck  with 
the  resemblance  between  a  swimming  small 
boy  and  a  tadpole ! 

All  these  things,  as  you  come  later  to  deal 
with  the  human  bodv,  will  give  vou  the  sense 


PHYSIOLOGY  213 

of  the  relation  of  man  to  the  rest  of  animal 
creation,  and  will  point  out  the  natural  tcay  of 
doing  things  ^vhich  we  in  our  artificial  way  of 
living  have  obscured,  much  to  our  hurt.  By 
this  means,  too,  you  will  discover  early  tend- 
encies, which,  observed  and  provided  for,  will 
explain  many  things  which  mystify  us  about 
our  children.  In  your  careful  observance  of 
these  antics  in  the  baby  you  will  make  for  your- 
self the  materials  for  teaching  him  later  on, 
using  illustrations  out  of  his  own  life.  You 
will  often,  too,  be  led  to  make  practical  choices 
of  great  moment.  Thus  the  best  penmanship 
among  my  children  is  that  of  the  one  who  is 
left-handed.  She  writes  most  beautifully,  and 
her  college  note-books  have  a  sort  of  copper- 
plate beauty  by  their  regularity,  neatness  and 
the  beautiful  formation  of  the  letters.  We 
tried  of  course  to  cause  her  to  write  with  her 
right  hand.  I  myself  was  taught  to  write  with 
both  and  used  to  write  equally  well  with  both. 
The  mother  showed  the  same  left-handed  tend- 
ency as  a  child,  and  was  compelled  to  write 
with  her  right  and  thus  utterly  spoiled  her  pen- 
manship. The  little  girl,  as  a  small  child,  was 
compelled  at  first  to  write  with  the  right,  but 
it  was  observed  that  the  moment  attention  was 
withdrawn  she  switched  quickly  to  the  left. 
We  finally  decided  to  let  her  use  the  left,  with 


214  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

the  result  above  noted.  Now,  as  1  view  it,  it 
would  have  been  nothing  short  of  abuse  to  pre- 
vent that  natural  development  which  has  re- 
sulted so  happily.  And  I  cannot  see  that  it 
has  caused  much  inconvenience.  There  are 
many  such  things  which  you  will  note  which, 
when  you  come  to  teach  the  subject  itself,  your 
observation  and  experience  will  turn  to  great 
practical  account. 

The  same  thing  is  true  when  you  come  to 
deal  with  the  voice  and  the  larynx  and  the  vocal 
chords  by  which  speech  is  produced.  Your 
butcher  will  get  you  the  larynx  of  a  sheep  eas- 
ily enough,  and  w^ith  that  working  model  you 
can  show  how  the  various  parts  cooperate  and 
how  sound  is  produced.  This  leads  me  to 
say  something  about  the  voice.  jNIost  peo- 
ple never  learn  how  to  use  their  voices,  and  the 
result  is  that  we  have  the  harsh  American  voice, 
which  is  noted  the  world  over  for  this  quality. 
Now  this  is  not  necessary.  There  are  differ- 
ences in  quality  of  voices,  of  course,  but  a 
pleasant  speaking  voice  is  within  the  reach  of 
all  who  are  not  deformed.  Your  own  example 
and  practice  in  this  matter  will  go  a  long  way 
toward  making  the  practice  of  the  child.  But 
you  can  also  make  the  child  conscious,  very 
early,  of  the  differences  between  the  various 
voices  it  has  to  hear  for  their  qualities  of  harsh- 


PHYSIOLOGY  215 

ness,  dissonance  or  pleasantness,  and  the  ob- 
ject lesson  will  have  very  great  weight.  This 
matter  cannot  be  emphasized  too  strongly. 
The  tone  used  ordinarily  indicates  the  emo- 
tion which  causes  it  and  is  behind  it.  You  can 
get  very  thorough  control  over  the  mental  op- 
erations of  the  child  by  the  voice,  and  help 
it  to  this  same  kind  of  control  by  directing  its 
own  attention  to  them.  You  have  doubtless 
noticed  that  even  small  babies  notice  the  differ- 
ences of  tone  employed  long  before  they  know 
speech.  That  same  influence  acquires  accel- 
erating power.  If  you  lose  the  distinctions  of 
tone  by  failing  to  use  your  voice  jwoperly,  es- 
pecially by  using  it  too  much,  you  lose  a  most 
valuable  instrument  for  intellectual  growth. 

You  will  remember  this  when  you  are  read- 
ing aloud,  or  when  your  child  is  uttering  words 
of  different  languages ;  you  will  note  it  at  play, 
and  you  will  especially  note  it  in  the  ordinary 
routine  of  the  home.  There  is  nothing  so  sat- 
isfactory in  the  home  as  a  pleasant-voiced  per- 
son. There  are  moral  implications  here,  too, 
which  should  not  be  overlooked.  Have  you 
ever  noticed  the  difference  between  a  command 
bawled  out  in  a  rage,  and  one  quietly  delivered 
in  even  steady  tones?  Have  you  ever  noticed 
how  you  can  lower  the  tone  in  a  roomful  of 
people  often   by  simply   lowering  the  voice? 


216  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

Have  you  ever  noticed  how  decisive  a  change 
came  over  the  tone  of  a  roomful  of  people 
when  certain  persons  stopped  talking?  Have 
you  ever  noticed  how  surely  the  tones  of  cer- 
tain other  voices  made  themselves  heard,  no 
matter  how  many  other  persons  happened  to  be 
talking?  Just  go  into  this  subject  a  little  on 
your  own  account.  And  while  you  are  study- 
ing about  the  tliroat,  the  larnyx,  and  the  vocal 
chords  deal  with  the  things  they  result  in,  and 
what  it  signifies. 

There  is  a  spiritual  phase  of  this  study, 
which  I  cannot  leave  the  subject  without  at 
least  mentioning,  though  I  have  fully  discussed 
the  subject  in  another  work.^  The  Christian 
religion  met  the  licentiousness  and  the  physical 
as  well  as  moral  degradation  of  heathenism 
with  the  assertion  that  the  body  was  "the  tem- 
ple of  the  Holy  Ghost."  In  our  day  we  are 
urging  that  the  body  shall  be  studied  and  cared 
for  in  the  interest  of  social  salvation  and  health. 
Whether  the  economic  or  prudential  motive 
will  be  strong  enough  to  get  these  things  for  us, 
through  education,  seems  to  be  open  to  grave 
doubt.  My  own  judgment  is  that  we  shall 
have  to  come  back  to  the  Hebrew  idea  of  mak- 
ing it  a  matter  of  religion.  By  them  ahnost 
every  bodily  function  was  regulated  by  reli- 

1  Christianity  and  the  Social  Rage,  p.  269. 


PHYSIOLOGY  217 

gious  law.  That  made  the  Hebrew  race  a 
marked  group  in  the  social  history  of  mankind, 
and  the  study  of  the  human  body,  whatever  its 
physical  origin  may  have  been,  which  is  to  be 
effective  in  the  regeneration  of  the  race,  must 
consider  it  from  the  spiritual  standpoint,  and 
from  this  standpoint  I  bid  you  to  begin  with 
your  children.  As  I  have  remarked,  "One 
thing  is  very  certain,  and  tliat  is,  that  if  a 
modern  city  block  were  subjected  to  the  severe 
regimen  of  the  Hebrew  codes,  seven-tenths  of 
the  troubles  in  them  would  disappear.  Not 
only  did  the  Hebrews  legislate  for  the  relation 
of  the  sexes,  the  relations  of  parents  and  chil- 
dren, of  special  groups  to  each  other,  but  in  a 
thousand  ways,  too  minute  for  detailed  descrip- 
tion here,  made  their  religion  govern  almost 
their  very  breath  that  its  adherents  took  into 
their  lungs.  Ablutions,  dress,  food,  sexual  re- 
lations, childbirth,  dietary,  and  almost  every 
other  form  of  what  we  should  now  regard  as 
the  special  field  of  medical  supervision,  were 
not  only  controlled,  but  highly  organized — so 
highly  that  it  remains  a  wonderful  thing  to  this 
day,  and  many  of  its  precepts,  as  already 
stated,  have  the  sanction  of  expert  medical  au- 
thorities. Religion  and  medicine  were  one, 
not  so  much  through  the  practise  of  medicine, 
as  through  sanitary  regulation  which  made  the 


818  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

religion   of   the    devotee   his    physical   salva- 
tion." 

Take  up,  therefore,  this  particular  hranch 
of  knowledge,  in  a  specially  humble  and  devo- 
tional frame  of  mind.  You  are  dealing  with 
the  most  wonderful  piece  of  mechanism  in  the 
world,  the  crown  of  nature,  and  the  most  su- 
perb exhibition  of  creative  skill  which  the  uni- 
verse contains.  Not  a  fragment  of  it  but  is 
worthy  of  your  most  minute  and  careful  inves- 
tigation, not  merely  because  it  is  an  intellec- 
tual problem  of  the  first  magnitude,  but,  even 
more,  because  you  are  indoctrinating  your 
child  into  the  residence  of  his  temple  of  the 
Holy  Ghost.  In  this  house  he  is  to  live  and 
move  and  have  his  being.  Here  he  may  make 
for  himself  a  mere  warehouse,  a  sty  or  a  shrine. 
Given  himself  under  the  holiest  association 
known  to  mankind,  and  given  for  nurture,  cul- 
ture and  immortality,  let  him  early  feel 
through  your  instruction  that  his  every  part 
is  sacred  to  some  high  and  holy  use.  That  for 
him  the  great  composers  have  made  the  most 
entrancing  appeals  to  his  ears,  the  noblest  art- 
ists to  his  eyes,  the  most  gifted  minds  to  his 
thought,  and  that  he  may  make  the  highest  use 
of  all  these  gifts,  he  must  master  the  best  use 
of  every  one  of  them.  This  will  lift  this  whole 
subject  out  of  the  region  of  the  commonplace, 


PHYSIOLOGY  219 

supposing  that  it  could  ever  fall  so  low,  and 
make  it  the  study  of  what  it  really  is — life  it- 
self— pure,  holy,  and  endless. 


CHAPTER  IX 

BOTANY 

Perhaps  the  best  way  in  which  I  can  intro- 
duce the  manner  of  bringing  the  subject  of 
botany  to  the  attention  of  children,  in  a  scien- 
tific way,  is  to  quote  from  a  master  of  the  sub- 
ject, Mr.  Grant  Allen:  "Plants  are  living 
things;  they  eat  with  their  leaves,  and  drink 
with  their  rootlets.  They  take  up  carbon 
from  the  air,  and  water  from  the  soil,  and 
build  the  materials  so  derived  into  their  own 
bodies.  Plants  also  marry  and  are  given  in 
marriage.  They  have  often  two  selves,  male 
and  female.  Each  seed  is  thus  the  product  of 
a  separate  father  and  mother.  Plants  are  of 
many  hinds,  and  we  must  inquire  by  and  by 
how  they  came  to  be  so.  Plants  live  on  sea 
and  land,  and  have  varieties  specially  fitted  for 
almost  every  situation.  Plants  have  very 
varied  ways  of  securing  the  fertilization  of 
their  flowers  and  look  after  the  future  of  their 
young  like  good  parents  that  they  are,  in  many 
different  manners.  Plants  are  higher  and 
lower,  exactly  like  animals."  ^ 

1  Story  of  the  Plants,  p.  13. 

220 


BOTANY  221 

There  you  have  already  a  comprehensive 
program  outHned  in  terms  which  ahnost  any 
child  can  understand.  You  have,  in  this  de- 
scription, a  "humanized"  outline  of  the  various 
processes  which  you  will  inquire  into,  and  into 
each  you  can  go  almost  as  far  as  you  please. 
For  your  purposes,  however,  you  will  not  go 
much  farther  than  the  merest  outlines  and  let 
the  interest  you  develop,  point  out  how  much 
farther  you  are  able  to  go.  Some  children 
when  they  become  interested  in  some  special 
branch  of  any  subject  want  to  pursue  it  much 
farther  than  others.  You  will  be  guided  in 
this  matter  entirely  by  the  interest  you  create. 
But  as  an  initial  step  you  will  take  up  these 
various  points,  and  deal  with  them  as  best  you 
may,  and  let  the  work  itself  point  out  whether 
you  have  stmck  a  special  lead  or  not. 

First  you  would  be  wise  to  get  some  ele- 
mentary text  book  in  botany  and  soak  your- 
self on  the  subject.  There  are  many  such 
books  and  they  all,  in  the  elements,  go  over 
substantially  the  same  ground  though  some  are 
clearer  than  others,  and  you  must  be  guided 
in  this  matter  by  your  own  surroundings.  But 
let  this  be  clear  from  the  beginning,  namely, 
that  you  need  not  go  far  from  your  own  home 
to  have  all  the  material  which  you  need,  and 
what  you  are  doing  here,  again,  let  me  remind 


828  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

you,  is  not  to  merely  teach  the  child  to  recog- 
nize the  common  plants  and  flowers  of  the 
vicinity  but  to  inculcate  an  intellectual  method 
of  inquiry  and  scrutiny  which  is  the  essence  of 
scientific  study.  First  make  it  clear  to  your- 
self that  all  the  natural  processes  with  which 
you  are  acquainted  in  human  beings  as  Mr. 
Allen  indicates,  exist  in  plant  life  also.  This 
will  link  it  with  your  study  of  the  human  body 
and  make  your  biological  parallels  very  effec- 
tive. Plants  are  living  things.  All  life  is 
derived  from  them,  and  they  were  before  ani- 
mal life,  which,  without  them,  never  could  have 
existed  upon  the  earth.  They  have  nutritive 
processes  and  habits  just  like  human  beings, 
and  have  to  earn  their  food  like  them  and  make 
arrangements  that  their  food  supply  is  not 
stopped.  Sometimes  they  seem  to  change 
their  very  nature,  because  the  conditions  under 
which  they  find  themselves  require  it  in  order 
to  live.  In  this  they  are  agam  like  human 
beings  and  almost  all  animals.  Then  they 
have  their  offspring,  their  children,  whom  they 
have  to  beget  and  nurture  and  provide  for. 
All  this  you  w^ill  assimilate  yourself  and  as  you 
take  up  this  study,  step  by  step,  you  will  have 
already  begotten  a  kind  of  affinity  between 
yourself  and  your  child's  mind  for  the  wonder- 
ful plant  creation. 


BOTANY  223 

Much  of  the  study  of  plants  fails  to  get  any- 
where because  the  study  is  linked  merely  to 
ideas  of  the  beautiful,  and  the  emphasis  is  laid 
on  the  pleasure  of  seeing  the  beauty  and  the 
blossoms.  That  is  not  your  object,  though 
you  will  appreciate  the  beauty  as  much  as  any- 
one. Your  business  is  to  get  into  the  life  of 
the  plants  from  their  own  standpoint.  You 
are  to  open  a  volume  of  nature  at  work  and 
you  will  simply  follow  it  as  it  works  and  be 
guided  by  it  rather  than  guiding  it  yourself. 
For  this  purpose  you  will  not  always  make  up 
your  mind  what  j'^ou  are  going  to  find.  Very 
likely  you  will  find  something  you  are  not 
looking  for  yourself.  Ever}^  such  "original  dis- 
covery by  the  child,  itself,  is  of  great  impor- 
tance because  it  brings  the  child  face  to  face 
with  a  law  of  nature  which  goes  on  silently, 
inevitably,  all  the  time  and  for  which  man 
has  made  no  provision,  and  which  man  did  not 
have  anything  to  do  with,  in  the  making. 
You  will  often  be  struck  with  the  additions  to 
your  own  teaching  which  the  child  will  make. 
I  recall  a  small  child,  which  was  being  taught 
along  this  line  and  had  been  given  a  bean  to 
plant  in  wet  sawdust  and  when  it  had  swelled 
and  was  about  to  throw  off  the  outer  skin,  the 
teacher  remarked,  "You  see,  the  bean  has  now 
outgrown  its  little  coat  and  is  going  to  throw 


224  TEACHING  IN   THE  HOME 

it  away  just  as  your  mother  does  when  you 
outgrow  your  coat!"  Quick  as  a  flash,  the 
maiden  replied,  "Oh  no,  she  does  not  throw  it 
away,  she  makes  it  over  for  my  httle  sister  I" 
which  was  not  only  a  beautiful  ilhistration  of 
economy,  but  was,  in  fact,  scientifically  exact. 
Nature  throws  nothing  away.  She  never 
wastes.  And  what  she  discards  in  one  form 
she  utilizes  in  another.  You  will  have  many 
such  pleasant  episodes. 

Having  prepared  yourself,  so  that  you 
know  where  you  are  to  begin,  you  will  provide 
yourself  with  pictures  of  plants,  if  possible, 
those  which  you  are  going  to  study  more 
minutely,  and  let  them  be  very  thoroughly 
known  and  recognized.  In  your  walks  you 
will  gather  many  of  the  commonest  and  iden- 
tify them  in  the  most  general  way.  This  is 
merely  to  get  the  habit  of  looking  about,  seeing 
unusual  things  and  finding  the  habitat  of  cer- 
tain flowers  and  plants.  You  will  readily  find 
that  some  are  always  found  in  certain  places, 
some  on  high  ground,  some  in  marshy  places, 
some  by  the  roadside  and  some  by  the  river- 
side. That  is  all  practical  information.  You 
will  also  notice  their  size  and  tCiVtiire.  Some 
are  strong  and  sturdy,  others  are  slender  and 
light.  You  will  notice  color  and  the  lack  of  it. 
You  wall  notice  resemblances  and  dissiinilari- 


BOTANY  225 

ties.  You  will  notice  form,  height  from  the 
ground,  and  manner  of  behavior  under  various 
conditions.  All  this  is  perfectly  simple  and 
but  preliminary. 

Then  you  will  get  a  microscope,  or  a  good 
magnifying  glass,  so  that  things  not  visible  to 
the  naked  eye  can  plainly  be  seen.  This  will 
be  your  constant  companion,  because  it  will 
instantly  reveal  many  things  which,  without  it, 
you  would  hardly  suspect,  much  less  know. 
If  you  can  keep  a  little  place  in  the  Summer 
time  or  a  httle  box  in  the  Winter,  though  you 
would  be  wiser  to  match  your  study  to  the  sea- 
sons, where  you  can  plant  things  and  watch 
them  grow,  so  much  the  better.  This  same 
microscope  will  serve  you  when  you  study  zo- 
ology and  the  little  insects  which  you  will  want 
to  know  about.  In  any  case,  remember  you 
are  to  proceed  with  the  little  student  as  though 
for  the  first  time  you  xiccre  finding  out  how 
these  plants  came  into  the  world  and  why  they 
stay  here  and  what  plans  they  make  for  keep- 
ing themselves  here. 

What  makes  this  study  so  important  is  that 
here  you  are  at  the  sources  of  life — for  plants 
alone  know  how  to  make  the  materials  of  life. 
Animals  could  not  exist  without  them,  and 
could  not  have  come  into  the  world,  if  plant 
life  had  not  prepared  the  way  for  them.     So 


226  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

that  as  you  watch  the  elements  of  plant  life  de- 
velop, you  are  close  to  the  sources  of  all  life. 
Everything  living  of  which  we  know  anything, 
came  from  this  source  which  itself  makes  living 
matter  out  of  material  found  in  the  air  under 
the  influence  of  the  heat  of  the  sun.  When 
the  Psalmist  therefore  says  that  our  life  is  but 
a  "vapor,"  he  is  stating  something  which  has 
almost  scientific  exactitude.  You  will  find 
that  a  few  such  generalizations  made  clear  to 
your  own  mind,  will  help  you  very  much  in  in- 
teresting the  children,  especially  if  you  keep 
the  human  resemblances  clear  step  by  step. 
Eating  and  drinking,  growing  and  changing, 
mating  and  reproducing,  settling  dozen  and 
moving  from  place  to  place,  all  these  can  be 
reduced  to  definite  reasons  which  can  easily  be 
made  clear.  And  when  you  find  a  plant  in  an 
unexpected  place,  you  will  immediately  ask 
what  happened  to  it,  that  it  had  to  move  from 
its  original  home,  and  you  will  thus  be  led  into 
another  field  of  knowledge,  geo\ogy. 

The  science  of  biology  is  the  study  of  living 
matter  and  living  matter  alone  has  the  capac- 
ity for  change  and  reproduction.  This  differ- 
entiates it  from  dead  matter.  There  are  two 
kinds  of  living  matter,  plants  and  animals. 
The  plants  are  the  producers,  the  animals  are 
the  consumers.     You  will  sometimes  find  that 


BOTANY  227 

the  plants  make  reprisals  on  the  animals,  as 
when  they  cannot  find  their  materials  in  the  air 
they  catch  some  form  of  animal  matter  and 
feed  on  that.  That  is  the  explanation  of  the 
plants  that  catch  flies  and  insects,  for  their  own 
nourishment.  The  habits  of  plants  are  very 
interesting,  and  form  a  very  useful  way  of  cre- 
ating interest  in  the  subject.  Sometimes  they 
change  a  stem  into  a  leaf,  for  necessary  reasons, 
and  sometimes  they  assume  forms  for  their 
protection,  as  in  the  case  of  the  spines  of  the 
cactus.  Some  again  are  strong  enough  to 
maintain  themselves  without  help,  while  others 
have  to  have  help  and  cling  to  something. 
You  will  always  find  that  the  plant  adapts  it- 
self to  its  conditions,  and  when  it  cannot  find 
conditions  natural  to  it  and  cannot  alter  the 
conditions,  it  alters  itself.  Thus  you  have  the 
two  laws  of  adaptation  and  variation  illus- 
trated. 

These  are  some  of  the  fundamental  things 
which  you  will  have  in  mind,  and  which  you 
will  be  constantly  referring  to,  because  they 
are  a  part  of  the  great  natural  system  under 
which  nature  works,  and  has  her  purposes  car- 
ried out.  They  reappear  in  ahnost  every 
form  of  the  study  of  living  things,  and  when 
once  the  child  gets  the  idea  of  the  same  law 
working  in   different   forms,   in   the   various 


228  TEACHING  IX  THE   HOME 

fields  of  nature  study,  whether  })lants  or  ani- 
mals, including  the  human  animal,  you  have 
taught  some  of  the  fundamental  lessons  of  sci- 
ence. The  earlier  these  are  mastered,  the 
earlier  will  the  reasoning  habits  be  strength- 
ened, and  sound  habits  of  thinking  developed. 
In  the  study  of  botany,  the  intrinsic  interest  of 
the  materials  themselves,  added  to  their  place 
in  the  common  ordinary  life  of  children,  makes 
progress  very  rapid  and  also  develops  the  abil- 
ity to  rationalize  about  things  which  are  not  so 
common. 

One  very  important  point  not  to  be  over- 
looked, is  that  you  must  let  the  child  do  as 
much  of  the  work  itself  as  it  is  capable  of 
doing.  Let  it  point  out  and  count  the  various 
parts.  Let  it  note  the  differences  as  they  ap- 
pear. Let  it  make  the  comparisons  and  let  it 
work  out  the  why  and  wdierefore,  you  supply- 
ing the  leading  questions,  and  making  the  sug- 
gestions when  necessary.  Here  also  is  a  good 
place  to  begin  drawing.  Of  course,  the  draw- 
ings will  be  crude,  but  do  not  let  that  bother 
you.  If  you  could  see  some  of  the  drawings 
in  freshman  laboratory  books  you  would  never 
feel  discouraged  about  anything  that  little 
children  do  in  this  direction.  But  as  you  will 
be  doing  this  not  only  in  your  study  of  botany, 
but  also  in  zoolog}^  and  geolog}',  you  will  be 


BOTANY  229 

getting  habits  of  observation  and  j)ractice, 
which  will  do  in  a  very  much  more  useful  form, 
what  is  usually  done  aimlessly  and  without  any 
end  in  view.  Sometimes  too,  children  will  de- 
velop unusual  skill  in  this  way,  which,  of 
course,  when  it  is  the  case,  indicates  another 
talent  which  should  carefully  be  conserved. 
Therefore  keep  blocks  of  blank  paper  around, 
and  pencils  that  make  a  distinctly  black  mark 
and,  when  possible,  let  the  completed  plants 
and  parts  of  plants  be  colored.  This  form  of 
activity  can  easily  be  made  "busy  work"  for 
the  emploj^ment  of  odd  times.  Dull  and 
stormy  days  can  through  this  means  often  be 
made  most  profitable  and  happy  days. 

\^nien  j^ossible,  get  complete  plants,  that  is 
dig  them  up  carefully  and  press  them  or  exam- 
ine them  entire,  first  try  to  classify  them,  your 
text  book  will  be  of  use  here,  and  then  take  up 
the  various  parts  of  its  structure.  Don't  at- 
tempt too  much  and  do  the  same  thing  over 
many  tiines,  the  practice  is  quite  as  important 
as  the  results.  By  this  means  you  get  manual 
dexterity  in  handling  delicate  things  and  care 
in  separating  them  and  preserving  them. 
When  you  go  walking,  a  little  tin  box,  large 
enough  to  put  an  entire  plant  into  without  in- 
juring its  parts,  slung  over  the  shoulder,  is 
very  useful.     If  you  can  get  one  with  three 


230  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

compartments  you  can  put  msects  mto  one, 
plants  into  another,  and  minerals  into  another, 
and  so  all  your  scientific  studies  will  go  hand 
in  hand. 

Learn  to  cut  up  a  plant  carefully  in  various 
ways  so  that  you  can  get  a  view  of  its  interior 
structure  and  can  note  how  it  is  put  together. 
The  mounting  of  these  parts  in  plants  that  are 
large  enough,  and  you  will  select  such  at  first, 
because  most  easily  handled,  will  also  afford 
pleasant  and  profitable  work.  Keep  the  child 
at  work  and  though  you  can  do  it  much  better 
yourself  let  the  child  do  it.  It  is  well  to  keep 
all  such  efforts  from  the  very  earliest.  They 
will  make  the  material  for  comparison  with 
later  productions,  and  also  indicate  the  meas- 
ure of  progress.  Whenever  you  use  a  com- 
mon flower  or  plant,  always  refer  to  it  by  its 
scientific  name.  You  will  remember  I  said 
that  this  will  help  you  in  language  study,  and 
these  names  all  have  a  history.  The  reason 
most  of  them  are  in  Latin  is,  that  it  was  and  is 
the  language  of  the  learned  world  and  is  read 
all  over  the  world  which  would  not  be  the  case 
with  any  other. 

Conmion  garden  vegetables  offer  a  reward- 
ing field  for  experimentation,  radishes,  carrots 
and  the  Hke.  You  can  study  them  at  everj' 
stage  of  their  gro^^i;h  and  note  the  various 


BOTAXY  231 

parts.  The  drawing  of  their  interior  stnic- 
ture  too,  is  simple  and  attractive  work.  Use 
your  garden  for  everything  you  have  learned. 
Make  frequent  reviews  of  the  things  which  you 
have  worked  out  and  see  that  they  are  recog- 
nized whenever  there  is  an  occasion  for  their 
recognition.  Show  the  functions  of  the  struc- 
ture clearly  and  simply;  what  leaves  do,  what 
stems  do,  what  roots  do,  and  how  they  do  their 
work.  Get  all  these  easily  discernible  things 
well  understood  before  you  take  up  fertiliza- 
tion, though  no  definite  place  can  be  made 
where  you  shall  begin  or  end.  Your  purpose 
being  to  fertilize,  yourself,  you  will  cause  many 
things  to  be  planted  in  the  child  mind,  only 
you  will  guard  as  best  j^ou  may,  against  giving 
mere  confused  masses  of  information.  It  is 
not  how  much  you  teach  but  how  much  you 
make  absolutely  clear  that  is  your  object. 
When  the  mind  is  clear,  acquisition  comes  rap- 
idly enough. 

You  can  make  the  subject  one  of  pleasur- 
able interest  by  means  of  seedlings,  using  for 
this  purpose  the  ordinary  bean,  pea,  sunflower 
and  the  like  which  you  can  sow  in  sand  or  moist 
sawdust,  and  as?  they  develop,  you  can  watch 
them  and  compare  them.  Notice  everything 
about  them  and  see  that  you  do  by  making 
drawings  of  them,  that  is,  letting  the  child 


2S2  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

make  the  drawings.  Your  text  book  will  give 
you  most  of  the  practical  directions,  but  what 
I  am  calling  attention  to,  is,  that  the  processes 
are  carefully  noted  and  compared.  Ap- 
paratus of  a  simple  sort  can  easily  be  devised 
and  most  of  the  simple  practical  experiments 
for  your  purpose  can  be  made  without  much 
difficulty.  You  can  take  the  various  grains 
and  examine  them  after  they  are  sprouted  in 
this  same  way.  Seeds  of  melons,  squash  or 
cucumbers,  will  add  to  the  interest  because 
these  are  common  every  day  things  about 
which  any  child  will  know  the  final  end. 
Write  to  the  Department  of  Agriculture  at 
Washington  and  have  them  send  you  a  list  of 
their  publications,  and  look  them  over  and  out 
of  them  you  will  get  all  sorts  of  material  for 
experimentation.  Seed  catalogues  and  flo'ucer 
catalogues  will  also  give  you  useful  material 
not  specially  for  botanical  study,  as  such,  but 
as  showing  pictures  which  stimulate  the  imagi- 
nation and  give  you  the  common  equivalents 
for  the  scientific  names  which  j^ou  will  habit- 
ually use.  Just  remember  that  everything  is 
grist  for  your  mill  and  that  you  are  to  get  in- 
formation from  every  source  and  work  it 
through  your  own  mind  for  the  purpose  of  giv- 
ing it  scientific  form  and  shape  for  the  child. 
Try  out  every  sort  of  thing  that  has  any  prom- 


BOTANY  233 

ise  in  it.  But  always  bring  whatever  you  be- 
gin to  a  full  complete  ending,  that  is,  do  not  let 
things  hang  at  loose  ends.  Finish  what  you 
set  out  to  accomplish.  Thus  if  you  begin  with 
a  geranium  just  get  everything  out  of  it  that  it 
is  possible  for  you  to  get,  and  while  all  that  you 
get  won't  be  all  of  it,  nevertheless  you  will  have 
for  that  particular  plant  a  more  or  less  com- 
plete set  of  ideas.  Do  this  with  a  plant  of 
each  group,  getting  this  way  variety. 

The  most  fascinating  portion  of  the  study 
of  plants  is  that  of  fertilization^  that  is,  the 
marriage  of  plants.  Make  it  clear  that  the 
flowers  are  the  mates  of  plant  marriage,  some- 
times husbands,  sometimes  wives,  sometimes 
both.  Sometimes,  in  the  lower  forms  these 
processes  are  not  very  clear,  and  in  some 
plants,  a  single  part,  if  it  is  placed  in  wet  soil 
begins  at  once  to  grow  into  a  new  individual 
plant.  There  are  many  forms  of  this  process 
and  your  business  will  be  only  to  deal  with  the 
simplest  at  first.  jNIake  it  clear  however  that 
the  flotJDer  of  any  plant  exists  only  for  the  pur- 
pose of  reproduction  and  that  all  its  parts,  and 
its  form,  and  its  color,  all  have  some  part  in  se- 
curing this  necessary  work.  You  will  show 
what  the  stamens  are  and  what  the  ijistils  are 
and  what  jjollen  is  and  how  all  these  work  to- 
gether and  you  will  watch  some  flowers  go 


234,  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

through  their  regular  work,  or  see  them  in  pic- 
tures in  their  different  stages,  to  see  just  what 
occurs.  The  stamens  and  the  pistils  are  the 
true  flowers,  because  upon  these  depends  the 
work  of  reproducing  and  the  petals  are  merely 
the  envelope  in  which  these  are  placed.  These 
petals  hy  their  color  attract  insects  which  help 
in  the  fertilization  and  their  coloring  is  usually 
for  this  purpose.  They  are  simply  an  an- 
nouncement to  the  insect  world,  that  this  is  a 
good  place  to  get  honey,  which  is  the  sweet 
sticky  substance  in  the  flower,  and  by  coming 
to  them  the  insects  carry  the  fertihzing  pollen 
from  one  plant  to  another  and  thus  aid  the 
work  of  keeping  the  species  ahve. 

But  there  is  a  different  purpose  here,  too, 
which  is  one  of  very  great  interest.  By  this 
means  different  plants  are  crossed  and  thus 
you  get  healthy  specimens,  which  is  exactly 
what  happens  when  different  members  of  the 
human  family  mate  with  other  family  stems 
than  their  own,  and  so  preserve  a  healthy 
strong  stock.  What  human  beings  do  by  pur- 
pose and  plan,  the  plants  do  naturally  to  keep 
themselves  alive  and  see  to  it  that  they  have 
strong  healthy  children.  The  higher  the 
plants  are  in  their  order,  the  more  necessary 
this  process  is.     Just  as  with  human  beings. 

This  usage  of  the  insects  is  a  very  interest- 


BOTANY  235 

ing  thing  to  watch,  because  it  shows  how  the 
plants  marry.  You  will  often  see  a  bee  com- 
ing out  of  a  flower  into  which  he  has  poked 
himself,  quite  covered  with  pollen.  Well,  he 
will  go  into  another  flower  and  he  will  nib  that 
pollen  off  at  the  right  spot  and  fertilize  the 
plant  to  which  he  goes  hy  'putting  the  pollen 
on  the  sticky  stigma  of  the  flower  to  which  he 
goes.  That  keeps  it  there  and  prevents  him 
from  carrying  it  further.  And  so  the  mar- 
riage takes  place.  The  plants  did  not  do  all 
this  at  first,  but  began  in  a  much  more  humble 
way.  But  gradually,  they  found  that  they 
could  get  the  insects  to  come  if  they  put  the 
honey  in  an  attractive  place,  and  made  the 
petals  bright  with  color,  so  that  they  could  eas- 
ily be  seen  afar  off,  and  very  soon  they  estab- 
lished a  plan  of  cooperation  with  them.  The 
plant  world  is  full  of  such  plans,  and  when 
they  result  in  the  marriage  of  the  plants  the 
plant  is  encouraged  to  do  the  same  thing  again. 
By  and  by,  it  becomes  a  family  habit.  Gen- 
erations of  insects  trained  in  this  way,  know 
exactly  where  to  go  and  what  they  will  find 
when  they  get  there. 

Sometimes  you  get  curious  results  which 
neither  the  plants  nor  the  insects  planned  for, 
and  when  this  is  the  case,  you  find  a  new  kind 
or  variation  of  the  plant.     All  these  things 


2S6  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

you  can  see  very  clearly,  in  common  flowers, 
like  buttercups  or  columbines  or  others  quite 
as  common.  Then  again,  you  will  often  no- 
tice that  the  plants  have  found  out  that  they 
are  visited  by  other  than  friendly  insects,  raid- 
ers who  simply  want  to  get  what  they  can  with- 
out doing  anything  in  return  for  the  honey 
they  get.  If  you  will  look  carefully,  you  will 
find  that  they  have  made  provision  for  these 
raiders  into  their  preserves,  and  have  made 
protective  places  where  they  hide  their  honey 
and  only  give  it  up  when  the  proper  visitor  ar- 
rives. 

Watch  the  butterflies  at  work,  and  see  how 
they  help  in  all  these  plans,  getting  a  good  view 
of  them  before  they  crawl  into  the  flower,  and 
how  they  look  when  they  come  out.  Even 
these  insects  which  fertilize  make  mistakes 
sometimes.  They,  like  the  rest  of  us,  meddle 
with  things  that  look  promising,  but  which  are 
dangerous  and  they  often  pay  for  their  experi- 
ments with  their  lives.  I  have  seen  butterflies 
make  such  mistakes. 

Then  again  there  is  another  agent,  which  has 
to  do  with  the  perpetuation  of  plant  life  and 
that  is  the  mud.  Grasses  are  generally  fer- 
tilized in  this  mamier  and  the  catkins  which 
you  are  so  glad  to  welcome  in  the  Spring  are  of 
this   character — that   is   icind-fertilizcd.     The 


BOTANY  237 

wind  does  a  great  many  wonderful  things  and 
it  is  most  interesting  to  see  how  the  grasses 
hang  out  their  stamens  to  the  wind.  It  is  for 
this  reason  that  they  are  so  numerous  and 
cover  such  vast  areas. 

Then  again,  you  will  deal  with  the  fruit 
which  is  simply  the  effort  of  the  plants  to  pro- 
vide for  their  young.  It  is  the  seed  which  is 
the  stored  food  of  the  plant  upon  which  the 
young  child  has  to  live,  when  first  it  begins  to 
germinate,  and  that  is  also  the  reason  why 
these  same  seeds  or  fruit  are  good  for  us  to 
eat,  many  of  them,  because  they  are  full  of 
nutrition.  By  these  the  young  plant  can  live 
for  a  long  time,  till  it  gets  to  the  point  where  it 
can  send  out  into  the  soil  its  own  little  rootlets 
and  agencies  for  getting  its  own  food. 

By  such  simple  stories,  and  in  this  simple 
manner,  you  will  induct  the  little  children  into 
the  study  of  what  becomes  the  science  of  bot- 
any. Use  your  text  book  freely  yourself  but 
do  most  of  your  work  with  the  plants  them- 
selves, and  let  the  children  do  all  that  they 
can  in  their  own  way  under  your  guidance. 
When  once  a  careful  dissection  of  a  plant 
has  been  made,  let  the  child  make  another 
on  its  own  account,  and  so  get  the  habit 
of  noticing  peculiarities  and  things  which  it 
has  not  seen  before.     Often  vary  your  story 


238  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

by  going  into  other  phases  of  the  subject, 
by  deahng  with  the  very  materials  out  of 
which  the  plant  is  formed.  For  example, 
take  the  subject  of  chlorophyll  and  explain 
what  the  significance,  the  perfectly  tremend- 
ous significance,  of  the  green  coloring  of 
the  plant  world  is.  That  will  afford  you  ma- 
terials for  many  hours  and  many  reflections 
and  discussions  about  things  of  never-ending 
interest. 

In  the  midst  of  the  study  of  the  plants  them- 
selves, you  can  bring  home  to  the  child  the 
wider  implications  of  the  plant  world,  its  rela- 
tions to  the  animal  world,  including  man,  for 
food,  and  the  fact  that  without  it  we  should  all 
die,  because  we  should  have  nothing  to  eat  and 
that  applies  not  only  to  us,  but  to  the  animals 
which  we  also  eat.  Point  out  that  there  was 
a  time  when  there  were  no  plants  or  only  the 
very  lowest  forms  which  appeared  first  because 
of  the  geological  condition  of  the  earth.  I 
have  taken  the  botany  first,  because  it  seemed 
to  be  the  science  in  which  interest  is  most  read- 
ily excited  and  where  the  variety  of  material 
is  greatest.  But  out  of  all  this  you  can  de- 
velop relations  of  thought  with  the  most  mod- 
ern and  vital  of  economic  subjects  like  food 
supply,  fertility  of  the  soil,  the  forestation  of 
areas  from  which  the  trees  have  been  cut  off. 


BOTANY  239 

and  the  mass  of  topics  which  will  be  found  in 
almost  any  morning  newspaper  or  magazine. 
Wlien  the  child  finds  that  what  it  has  been 
studying  in  this  simple  way  is  related  to  the 
big  practical  questions  with  which  the  master 
minds  of  the  world  are  struggling,  its  interests 
will  automatically  expand,  and  you  will  often 
discover  that  it  raises  questions  which  did  not 
occur  even  to  you. 

Always  keep  to  the  habit  of  asking  for  rea- 
sons ^  the  why  and  the  wherefore  of  everything. 
If  you  don't  know  yourself  find  out.  But  en- 
courage that  habit  because  it  lies  at  the  base  of 
the  organization  of  the  mind  for  dealing  with 
problems  concerning  which  there  are  few  data 
to  begin  with.  To  look  about  with  a  new  ques- 
tion, and  work  out  some  kind  of  a  hypothesis 
concerning  it,  and  then  finding  out  whether  it 
is  right  or  wrong,  is  the  best  mental  training 
that  exists.  Some  things  to  be  sure  are  fixed 
and  you  may  say  that  they  are  to  be  learned 
outright.  But  not  man}',  and  we  are  con- 
stantly finding  out  that  many  things  we  sup- 
posed to  be  fixed  are  not  fixed  at  all.  Study 
physical  laws  along  with  all  this  material. 
The  pressure  of  air,  and  the  velocity  of  the 
wind,  and  the  fall  of  rain,  and  the  creation  of 
gases,  and  their  effect  or  modification  of  living 
life.     That  will  lead  you  directly  into  many 


240  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

practical  things  which  concern  the  daily  life  of 
the  child  itself.  You  can  show  best  by  the 
study  of  plants  how  much  conditions  affect  re- 
sults and  by  this  method  make  the  child  itself 
conscious  much  of  effective  life  depends  upon 
conditions,  and  show  which  of  tliese  it  has  in  its 
own  keeping.  Plant  life  responds  so  readily 
to  all  sorts  of  changed  conditions,  that  it  illus- 
trates many  ethical  as  well  as  natural  laws. 
Hardly  a  tree  but  shows  the  effect  of  some 
outer  influence  which  has  been  brought  to  bear 
upon  it  while  growing,  and  the  habits  of  plants 
in  adapting  themselves  to  their  conditions  may 
well  furnish  the  illustration  for  the  profound- 
est  moral  lessons  wuth  which  the  human  mind 
can  deal. 


CHAPTER  X 

ZOOLOGY 

The  general  methods  which  have  been  laid 
down  in  dealing  with  plants  apply  also  to  the 
study  of  animals  with  this  difference:  the 
plants  stay  put,  while  the  animals  move  about 
and  hence  you  have  to  catch  your  animal  in  or- 
der to  study  him.  What  this  means  is,  that 
animals  have  organs  of  locomotion  and  a  gen- 
erally much  more  highly  develo2:)ed  set  of  or- 
gans including  those  of  motion.  There  are 
some  scientists  who  believe  that  the  lowest 
forms  of  animal  and  j^lant  life  either  are  alike 
or  come  together  and  wliether  this  is  true  or 
not,  it  is  true  that  at  the  bottom  they  are  very 
much  alike.  By  the  time  you  get  to  comparing, 
let  us  say,  a  tree  with  a  horse  or  a  cow,  you  have 
travelled  a  long  distance  because  the  highly 
developed  horse  has  a  distinct  and  special 
set  of  organs  for  walking,  for  digesting,  for 
breathing,  for  circulation,  much  more  highly 
differentiated  though  the  plants  have  organs 
which  perform  the  same  functions.  But  with 
the  animals  generally  speaking  the  particular 

241 


242  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

organ  does  the  work  of  that  organ,  while,  in 
plants,  the  whole  plant  works  at  everything 
almost.  Then  again  animals  have  a  nervous 
system  and  in  this  they  differ  entirely  from  the 
plants. 

These  organs,  however,  are  simply  an 
evolved  form,  that  is,  a  higher  form  of  what 
exists  in  lower  animal  forms  and  in  plants. 
The  animals  simply  represent  a  higher  stage 
of  development.  The  word  zoology  means 
the  science  of  animals  or  discourse  about  ani- 
mals. You  cannot,  of  course,  take  up  the  ear- 
liest forms  which  require  a  very  careful  use  of 
the  microscope  but  you  can  readily  begin 
with  some  of  the  more  general  and  common 
things  which  lie  all  about  you.  You  can,  for 
example,  study  the  aphides  on  the  rose  bushes 
or  on  the  fruit  trees  and  see  what  the  ants  do 
with  them.  You  can  study  an  ant  hill  and  the 
work  of  the  ants  themselves  and  the  form  and 
structure  of  the  houses  they  build  and  watch 
them  at  work,  a  most  absorbing  and  interest- 
ing occupation.  You  can  watch  bees  at  work 
or  you  can  study  the  work  of  icasps,  or  spiders, 
all  of  which  present  most  thrilling  phases  of 
this  kind  of  study. 

A  very  good  beginning  may  be  made  by  tak- 
ing any  common  insect,  a  spider  or  a  beetle,  for 
choice,  and  study  its  j)arts  through  a  magnify- 


ZOOLOGY  24S 

ing  glass  and  taking  it  apart  piece  by  piece  and 
seeing  how  it  is  put  together  and  working  out 
what  all  are  designed  to  accomplish.  You 
can  find  a  great  deal  of  entertainment,  as 
well  as  information,  in  noticing  carefully 
the  structure  and  form  of  every  organ  and 
then  asking  what  it  has  to  do  with  the 
habits  of  the  animal.  You  will  notice  how 
thoroughly  every  organ  is  adapted  for  the 
work  which  it  is  designed  to  do.  All  this,  of 
course,  did  not  come  about  by  accident.  It 
took  a  very  long  period,  just  how  long  nobody 
can  say,  till  each  one  of  these  tiny  instruments 
became  so  exactly  fitted  to  do  the  work  for 
which  the  insect  uses  it.  A  common  grass- 
hopper lends  itself  for  dissection  very  nicely 
and  the  parts  are  readily  separated  and  ana- 
lyzed. 

You  will  not  have  done  this  many  times,  be- 
fore you  will  become  aware  that  the  same  great 
law  which  we  discovered  in  plants,  is  also  at 
work  here  and  that  the  animals  have  become 
adapted  to  their  surroundings  just  as  the 
plants  have  been.  Sometimes  you  will  see  the 
remains  of  the  organs  for  which  the  animal 
once  had  use,  but  for  which  it  has  now  none  and 
consequently  it  is  disappearing  or  changing. 
Nature  does  not  waste  anything,  least  of  all 
power  and  strength,  and  when  organs  cease  to 


241.  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

perform  any  special  office,  or  have  any  work 
to  do,  she  lets  them  die  and  they  pass  away. 
But  often  the  place  where  they  were  sliows 
traces  of  them,  and  there  are  said  to  be  many 
such  remains  in  the  human  body,  of  the  organs 
for  which  man  once  had  use,  but  for  which  he 
has  none  now. 

You  will  notice  that  the  differences  in  these 
respects  are  those  which  affect  the  struggle  for 
life  most  keenly,  fingers  and  toes,  tentacles 
and  antennw,  because  when  the  use  of  these 
becomes  changed,  the  change  has  to  be  made 
quickly.  It  is  just  as  if  you  began  to  go  bare- 
foot and  very  soon  your  foot  would  show  the 
changed  order  of  things,  because  you  are  walk- 
ing all  the  time  and  changed  habits  here  would 
be  very  serious.  You  can  notice  this  also  in 
the  hands  and  fingers  of  workmen  in  various 
callings,  and  see  how  their  work  affects  their 
hands.  All  this  in  animals  is  very  common, 
and  has  to  do  with  the  saving  of  the  animal's 
Hfe.  It  found  that  it  had  to  change  its  habits, 
if  it  wished  to  survive,  and  only  those  who 
could  do  this,  did  actually  survive,  hence  the 
expression  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  Only 
the  strongest  and  the  readiest  could  make  the 
changes.  It  is  just  so  with  men.  Those  who 
can  readily  meet  new  conditions,  and  adapt 
themselves  to  them,  get  along  when  changes 


ZOOLOGY  245 

are  necessary.  Those  who  cannot  alter  their 
habits,  or  are  not  strong  enough  to  do  pio- 
neering into  new  conditions,  die  off.  The 
law  is  the  same  in  both  cases.  INIost  of 
our  domestic  animals  had  wild  ancestors, 
just  as  man  had  wild  ancestors.  We  have 
been  tamed  and  they  have  been  tamed.  But 
by  this  taming  process,  we  have  also  lost 
something,  namely,  the  ability  to  endure  hard- 
ship and  fight  for  hfe  under  severe  or  adverse 
conditions.  The  foot  of  a  horse,  for  example, 
has  gone  through  many  changes  before  it  came 
to  be  what  it  is  now. 

Conditions  make  most  animals  tchat  they  are 
and  that  is  the  reason  why  animals  in  the  cold 
climates  have  heavy  fur  and  those  in  milder 
zones  have  nothing  like  as  heavy  coats.  The 
climate  has  much  to  do  with  the  habits  and  dis- 
position as,  of  course,  it  affects  the  food  and 
much  more  about  animals.  The  nature  of  the 
soil  and  the  character  of  the  food  supply,  all 
have  great  influence  in  this  direction.  You 
will  often  have  noticed  how,  in  hunger,  ani- 
mals eat  things  which  they  do  not  usually  en- 
joy. If  that  process  were  continued  long 
enough,  the  unusual  food  might  easily  become 
the  habitual  food,  and  the  digestive  organs 
would  gradually  become  accustomed'  to  it  and 
take  on  a  form  and  method  ichich  tcould  pro- 


246  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

vide  for  it.  When  you  consider  the  peculiar 
digestive  apparatus  of  a  cow,  for  example,  you 
have  only  to  consider  the  food  and  habits  and 
purposes  of  the  cow  organism,  to  account  for 
most  of  it.  In  dissecting  insects  or  small  ani- 
mals always  look  at  the  various  organs,  for 
strange  and  curious  things. 

The  general  principles  of  zoologj"  can  be 
best  understood  perhaps  by  taking  some  single 
specimen  and  studying  it  in  detail,  though  for 
little  children  this  is  sometimes  wearisome, 
yet  the  study  and  dissection  of  a  frog,  gives 
endless  delight  and  furnishes  all  sorts  of  in- 
formation which  has  great  uses.  Frogs  be- 
sides are  interesting  creatures  in  themselves 
and  are  easy  to  get  at.  You  will,  of  course, 
have  by  you  some  good  text-book  in  whicli 
what  you  are  studying  may  be  looked  up,  and 
you  may  be  guided  yourself,  so  that  you  can 
study  with  the  children.  Some  general  in- 
struction as  to  classification  may  be  given  at 
first,  though  generally  it  will  be  found  best  to 
give  it  by  implication,  though  the  four-fold 
classification  of  Cuvier  is  still  as  useful  as  any. 
But  you  can  easily  indicate  the  difference  be- 
tween vertehrata,  the  arthropoda,  the  moUiisca, 
and  the  vermes  and  if  it  is  found  necessary 
some  others.  But  as  you  will  recall  that  you 
are  not  making  a  zoologist,  but  merely  teach- 


ZOOLOGY  247 

ing  the  child  that  there  is  a  vast  field  of  knowl- 
edge called  zoology,  and  what  it  is  about,  you 
need  not  at  this  stage  concern  yourself  about 
the  many  things  which  will  come  when  more 
formal  study  is  entered  upon.  You  will,  of 
course,  strike  such  a  term  as  protozoa  and  you 
will  be  wise  to  find  out  what  it  means  and  per- 
haps at  some  stage,  tell  the  child  about  it.  It 
is  not  difficult  to  define  and  enough  is  said 
in  the  papers  and  magazines  to-day  about 
ceJls  and  cell-life  to  make  it  readily  intelli- 
gible. 

It  is  well,  however,  to  take  up  the  embryol- 
ogy of  the  various  classes  of  animals  and  find 
out  how  they  come  into  the  world,  and  how 
they  mate,  and  what  changes  they  undergo 
from  infancy  to  maturity.  In  the  frog,  of 
which  I  have  already  spoken,  this  is  a  very  in- 
teresting process  and  one  easily  made  intelli- 
gible even  to  little  children.  The  birds  will 
help  to  make  this  part  of  the  study  interesting 
too,  because  they  can  so  easily  be  observed  in 
the  Spring.  But  though  you  will  study  many 
things  about  many  animals,  try,  if  possible,  to 
keep  one  on  the  table  constantly  for  further 
study,  all  the  time  getting  more  and  more  in- 
formation about  it,  till  it  has  been  thoroughly 
worked  over.  You  will  not  have  exhausted  it 
even    then.     But   you   will   have   established 


248  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

some  of  the  principles,  which  is  what  you  are 
after. 

If  you  happen  to  be  by  the  sea  shore  you 
have  your  work  made  for  you  in  the  study  of 
the  sea-urchins  and  shells  and  crabs  and  even 
lower  forms  which  you  will  hunt  out  and  put 
under  your  miscroscope.  Some  have  consid- 
ered this  one  of  the  most  fascinating  portions 
of  the  study.  I  have  seen  some  eminent  men 
spend  a  whole  afternoon  over  a  clam  and  every 
moment  of  it  w^as  w^onderful  to  me.  The  same 
is  true  of  fishes  w^hich  can  easily  be  dissected 
and  studied  by  the  waterside,  either  of  the  sea, 
or  lakes,  or  rivers.  If  you  will  make  a  water 
glass,  that  is,  a  box  with  a  glass  bottom,  and 
push  it  down  into  the  water  of  a  pool,  your 
face  above  it  shutting  out  the  light  from  above, 
you  will  see  many  wonderful  and  curious 
things.  At  some  of  the  Southern  sea  resorts 
they  have  boats  fitted  with  glass  bottoms  by 
which  many  interesting  things  under  the  boat 
can  be  seen.  A  little  experimenting  here  will 
be  very  rewarding.  This  also  leads  me  to  say 
that  the  keeping  of  an  aquarium  helps  in  the 
study  of  fishes  and  water  animals,  makmg  ob- 
servation easy  and  the  recording  of  such  obser- 
vations regular. 

Try  out  all  sorts  of  experiments  before  set- 
tling down  to  any  theory'  about  anything.     If 


ZOOLOGY  249 

you  get  a  live  frog,  for  example,  put  him  in  a 
tub  and  watch  how  he  swims,  how  he  eats,  how 
he  rests,  and  how  he  jumps,  and  notice  the  dif- 
ference between  a  frog  which  is  an  hour  in  the 
light  and  one  which  is  an  hour  in  the  dark.  If 
you  haj^pen  to  be  training  a  spider,  notice  what 
attracts  him,  what  frightens  him,  how  far  he 
can  hear  and  the  like.  Put  a  dead  fly  where 
he  can  get  at  it,  or  better,  a  living  one  so  that 
it  cannot  get  away,  and  watch  him  strike  it 
and  kill  it.  Or,  if  you  happen  to  be  studying 
a  worm,  put  it  on  a  sheet  of  paper,  and  watch  it 
move,  how  it  moves,  what  it  will  do  when  you 
touch  it;  examine  its  various  parts  and  see 
what  they  do  if  you  touch  them.  If  you  liap- 
pen  to  be  studying  birds,  which  you  can  often 
do  very  well  with  an  ordinary  opera  glass,  take 
the  various  organs  in  detail.  I  have  watched 
a  humming  bird  thus  for  a  long  time  and  got- 
ten a  very  thorough  view  of  his  methods  and 
beauty  while  at  work. 

It  will  add  very  much  if  you  make  collec- 
tions of  insects,  because  by  this  means  j'ou  can 
make  comparisons  more  readily  and  this  is 
really  a  very  important  part  of  the  work.  To 
see,  side  by  side,  two  animals  which  are  in 
many  respects  alike  and  in  others  quite  dis- 
similar is  to  emphasize  their  differences  and 
this  will  make  it  both  natural  and  easy  to  in- 


250  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

quire  what  makes  the  difference  and  thus  make 
a  straight  road  to  the  habits,  food,  digestive  or- 
gans, and  the  like,  and  make  your  lesson  for 
you  whenever  you  wish  to  take  it  up.  It  will 
also  form  interesting  material  for  drawing  ani- 
mals in  whole,  or  in  part,  and  comparing  Die 
parts  after  they  are  thus  drawn.  It  will  also 
make  it  easy  to  compare  colorings  and  some  of 
the  butterflies  and  dragon-flies  are  very  beauti- 
ful and  when  examined  under  a  glass  disclose 
rare  things.  Great  care  should  be  exercised  in 
this  part  of  your  task,  because  delicate  parts  are 
easily  broken  and  this  very  delicacy  of  han- 
dling is  itself  a  kind  of  training  in  dexterity 
and  skill,  which  helps  in  many  ways  both  in 
the  wi'iting  and  in  the  drawing.  But  it  will 
help  in  other  things  too.  A  child  that  has 
learned  how  to  handle  delicate  insects'  wings, 
will  handle  every  other  thing  with  much  more 
care  and  tenderness.  Clumsiness  will  disap- 
pear and  every  task  performed  with  the  hands 
will  be  enhanced  thereby.  It  will  also  add 
grace  and  beauty  to  the  hands  themselves. 

This  is  especially  true  in  handling  the 
feathers  of  birds  which  suffer  from  careless 
handhng  and  lose  much  of  their  beauty  and  al- 
most all  of  their  texture.  Always  handle  a 
bird  by  the  bill,  and  then  you  won't  break  or 
mar  anything.     Never  drag  it  over  any  sur- 


ZOOLOGY  251 

face.  Some  persons  have  a  constitutional 
aversion  for  s^nakes.  But  if  you  happen  to 
find  them,  especially  the  small  and  harmless 
kind,  put  them  in  a  glass  box,  find  out  about 
their  food  and  study  their  habits.  It  will  give 
some  important  information,  besides  being  of 
great  interest.  In  fact  everything  is  a  part  of 
your  task  because  you  are  making  the  ac- 
quaintance of  the  great  world  of  animal  crea- 
tion, and  by  seeing  as  many  portions  of  it  as 
possible,  )'0u  are  laying  the  foundation  for  the 
understanding  of  the  laws  of  the  great  animal 
world  by  which  they  and  we  are  alike  gov- 
erned. 

In  this  same  connection  you  will  discover 
that  almost  every  animal  has  some  kind  of  de- 
fensive weapon,  because  every  animal  has  its 
own  particular  enemies  against  which  it  has  to 
be  constantly  prepared  to  fight,  if  it  wishes  to 
live.  The  study  of  the  methods  of  defense  by 
animals  is  very  interesting  because  some  of 
them  are  aggressive  and  visible  and  some  of 
them  are  not  visible.  Animals  that  cannot  de- 
fend themselves  by  strength  do  it  by  cunning. 
Many  animals  have  what  is  known  as  defensive 
coloring  for  this  purpose,  by  w^hich  they  so 
identify  themselves  with  their  surroundings 
that  it  is  often  very  hard  to  see  them.  Others 
have  other  ways.     You  will  often  be  surprised 


262  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

how  still  an  animal,  with  quick  motive  power 
can  stand  till  it  is  sure  that  it  is  in  danger  and 
then  dart  almost  with  the  quickness  of  light- 
ning to  some  place  of  security.  But  the  study 
of  these  things  furnishes  the  material  for  much 
reflection,  not  only  on  the  life  of  lower  animals, 
but  hardly  less  upon  the  life  and  development 
of  man. 

The  defensive  equipment  of  animals  also 
suggests  another  matter,  namel}',  the  parasitic, 
animals  which  live  upon  their  prey,  actually 
making  their  habitat  upon  the  animals  they 
live  upon.  These  are  found  not  only  among 
land  animals  but  also  among  water  animals, 
and  the  study  of  parasites  again  leads  to  some 
interesting  conclusions.  Parasitism  has  come 
to  have  a  meaning,  not  only  in  the  field  of  nat- 
ural history,  but  also  a  deeper  and  more  sig- 
nificant meaning  in  the  affairs  of  men.  Noth- 
ing can  convey  the  hideousness  of  living  with- 
out working  or  productiveness  of  some  kind  to 
young  children,  than  to  see  the  little  Uce  which 
infest  the  larger  animals  and  realize  that  their 
entire  life  is  lived  upon  the  bodies  of  other  be- 
ings than  themselves.  The  notion  that  there 
are  parasitic  men  who  live  upon  others,  doing 
nothing  for  themselves,  w^as  a  distinct  ethical 
shock  to  some  young  children  I  was  teaching 
and  I  think  hardly  anything  I  ever  did  made 


ZOOLOGY  253 

them  so  anxious  to  work  lest  they  sliould  in 
their  own  minds  become  identified  with  para- 
sites. 

By  contrast,  the  study  of  bees  makes  a  fine 
method  of  inculcating  the  higher  virtues  of  in- 
dustry, frugality,  forethought,  and  patience. 
Bees  can  be  watched  so  easily  and  the  litera- 
ture of  the  subject  is  so  full  and  so  many  de- 
scriptions are  accessible,  that  it  is  a  very  simple 
matter  to  follow  them  through  all  their  work 
and  teach  the  various  principles  which  they 
are  illustrating.  Wasps,  which  though  not  so 
highly  esteemed  popularly,  are  hardly  less 
wonderful  in  the  way  they  go  about  their  work, 
and  a  most  interesting  comparison  might  be 
made  between  the  resemblances  and  differ- 
ences of  the  queen  wasp  and  the  queen  bee. 
Both  are  very  remarkable  personages  and  sin- 
gularly efficient  and  important  to  their  kind. 

Perhaps  not  with  the  very  smallest  little 
children,  but  surely  with  children  of  seven  or 
eight,  you  can  tiy  the  dissection  of  an  animal 
of  higher  calibre  than  any  of  those  yet  sug- 
gested— let  us  say  a  rabbit.  What  you  have 
tried  with  a  frog  or  a  bird,  will  have  in  a  meas- 
ure given  you  the  courage  and  experience  to 
try  something  larger  and  the  rabbit  is  easily 
cut  up  and  the  organs  taken  apart  and  exam- 
ined.   You  can  do  as  much  or  as  little  as  seems 


254  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

wise  to  you  in  this  matter,  and  must  be  gov- 
erned by  the  interest  and  disposition  of  the 
child.  Some  children  love  this  sort  of  thing, 
and  are  never  happier  than  when  cutting  up 
something  and  trying  to  find  out  what  is  on 
the  inside.  There  are  others  that  shrink  at 
first,  and  some  who  never  enjoy  it,  even  after 
they  have  become  used  to  the  idea  of  dissec- 
tion and  know  its  necessity  and  importance. 
But  wherever  you  find  the  disposition,  push  it 
to  the  utmost  and  get  all  the  information  you 
can.  This  is  your  golden  time  when  there  are 
no  interests  competing  with  you,  which  you 
cannot  readily  overthrow  or  circumvent. 

This  is  also  the  time  when  you  will  fre- 
quently stimulate  your  young  student's  inter- 
est by  taking  him  to  the  nearby  museums  and 
showing  him  all  sorts  of  animals,  especially 
those  which  he  has  handled  and  which  he  will 
observe  with  a  tenfold  greater  interest  because 
he  knows  something  about  them  through  per- 
sonal contact. 

Many  cities  have  also  now  zoological  gar- 
dens with  all  kinds  of  animals  and  frequent 
visits  to  these,  with  the  equipment  of  knowl- 
edge which  you  will  give  before  you  go,  so  that 
the  young  people  will  know  what  they  see 
when  they  look,  and  what  to  look  for,  will  help 
in  the  study  of  animal  life.     Of  course,  all  this 


ZOOLOGY  255 

time  you  will  be  having  a  harvest  time  with 
other  things,  namely  geography,  teaching  all 
about  the  lands  of  the  nativity  of  these  ani- 
mals, and  all  you  know  about  them  or  can 
gather  about  them.  You  will  have  a  perfectly 
joyous  time  (I  did)  working  out  the  wonder- 
ful scientific  names  of  the  various  species  and 
classes  and  families  of  animals,  and  enriching 
the  vocabulary  by  great  additions  of  all  sorts. 
Remembering  what  I  have  already  said  about 
word-study,  just  think  of  what  materials 
you  have  in  such  words  as  mammalia.^  car- 
nivora,  pala?ontolog}%  zoogeography,  morphol- 
og}^,  and  the  like.  JSIy  own  children  used  to 
jump  at  these  and  their  kind,  with  a  snort  of 
pleasure  which  was  wonderful  to  witness,  and 
when  they  had  once  gotten  a  firm  grip  on 
them,  they  used  to  hang  them  about  their  con- 
versation like  garlands,  or  as  a  warrior  might 
display  his  spoils  of  the  chase.  As,  in  fact, 
such  they  were. 

Animal  pets  can  be  made  to  play  a  large 
part  in  this  study  if  the  pets  are  made  to  be 
something  besides  pets,  and  are  studied  as  well 
as  played  with.  I  remember  very  well  some 
children  who  knew  all  about  white  mice  and 
did  perfectly  wonderful  things  with  them,  and 
never  understood  how  intimate  and  exact  their 
knowledge  was  till  I  saw  students  in  the  medi- 


256  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

cal  school,  doing  the  same  things  with  mice 
they  were  experimenting  with  in  their  research 
work.  So,  also,  I  have  known  children  who 
displayed  positive  genius  with  rabhits,  and  I 
knew  a  little  girl  who  had  above  a  hundred  ca- 
naries in  the  attic  of  her  home  which  she  had 
reared  herself,  and  which  she  almost  seemed  to 
know  by  name.  In  another  home,  I  saw  a 
humming  bird  that  had  almost  been  frozen  and 
which  was  found  outside  of  a  window,  so 
trained  that  it  would  come  at  call  and  sit  on 
the  finger  of  its  keeper  and  which  feeding  on 
its  food  of  diluted  honey  was  one  of  the  most 
interesting  sights  I  ever  witnessed. 

What  can  be  done  with  birds  is  well 
kno^vn  to  many  people.  Children  can  easily 
be  taught  comradeship  with  their  pets,  in  fact, 
take  to  it  naturally,  and  often  these  pets  will 
endure  a  good  deal  from  children  whom  they 
have  learned  to  trust.  I  think  I  have  already 
mentioned  the  story  of  the  incubator  chicken 
Tom  (the  original  duet  being  Tom  and 
Jerry,  remains  of  a  dozen,  all  the  rest  of  whom 
perished)  and  how  abominably  domesticated 
he  became,  and  what  a  nuisance  it  was  continu- 
ally to  be  mistaken  into  thinking  that  a  baby 
was  crying,  when  it  was  only  Tom  cheeping 
and  wailing  for  company!  I  wouldn't  advise 
cultivating  house  mice  but  for  a  number  of 


ZOOLOGY  257 

months  I  had,  in  the  evening,  after  the  children 
had  gone  to  bed,  a  good  deal  of  amusement 
calling  a  mouse  with  musical  instincts  out  of 
his  hole  while  I  played  the  piano  to  him.  His 
exhibition  of  positive  joy,  and  his  efforts  to 
dance,  were  a  source  of  great  delight  to  me.  I 
taught  him  to  modulate  his  steps  pretty  well 
for  an  ordinary  mouse,  with  whom  I  had  only 
a  long  distance  acquaintance,  and  more  than 
once  he  rolled  over  in  the  determination  to 
keep  up  with  the  fast  time  I  gave  him.  He 
never  loved  me  enough,  however,  to  let  me  see 
him  at  close  range  and  rushed  to  his  hole  im- 
mediately after  the  orgy.  He  disappeared 
quite  suddenly. 

Of  course,  all  these  things  have  no  particular 
scientific  value,  but  they  open  the  mind  to  the 
possibilities  and  show  how  wonderful  the  ani- 
mal world  is  and  what  we  may  yet  learn.  In 
this  connection  animal  stories  may  be  used 
with  good  effect  and  purpose.  Stories  of  the 
great  exploits  of  dogs  or  horses  are  alwaj^s  wel- 
come to  children  and  with  the  scientific  mate- 
rial the  human  elements  may  be  mingled  so 
that  the  whole  subject  gets  a  sort  of  glow 
which  is  both  stimulating  and  informing. 
You  can  never  know  when  these  little  experi- 
ments will  give  you  pleasure.  While  I  am 
writing  this,  a  big  spider  from  outdoors  has 


258  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

crawled  up  on  the  window  sill  and  hearing  the 
click  of  the  typewriter  is  wondering  whether  to 
go  on  or  not.  By  and  by,  I  shall  write  his  his- 
tory! 

The  geographical  distribution  of  animals 
can  be  made  a  very  pleasurable  occupation  for 
young  children,  by  taking  large  sheets  sep- 
arately, and  placing  upon  them  pictures  of  ani- 
mals and  then  locating  them  on  the  map. 
Sometimes  the  evolution  of  a  particular  species 
can  be  shown  in  successive  pictures  which 
makes  an  interesting  exhibit.  Then  too,  the 
distribution  of  marine  animals  can  be  made 
equally  interesting  by  placing  them  on  the  map 
in  the  various  parts  of  the  ocean  where  they 
may  be  found.  This  sort  of  work  is  good  for 
indoor  days  and  will  be  found  to  be  valuable 
for  many  other  things  than  this  particular  sub- 
ject. It  will  be  found  a  useful  thing  too, 
to  associate  geographically  the  animals  and 
plants  of  a  particular  region,  and  thus  get  a 
line  on  groupings  of  animals  and  plants  and 
see  how  this  is  related  to  climate,  soil,  food 
and  other  conditions.  There  are  many  such 
devices  which  can  be  worked  out  and  you  will, 
of  course,  do  this  fu*st  of  all  for  the  region 
where  you  happen  to  be.  In  fact,  cultivate 
your  own  region  first  in  everything,  not  only 
because  it  is  easier  and  simpler  to  do  this,  but 


ZOOLOGY  259 

because  the  interest  in  the  things  near  at  hand 
will  prove  that  you  do  not  need  to  go  far  from 
home  for  enjoyment  and  pleasure.  Distance 
will  always  lend  enchantment,  so  place  the  em- 
phasis on  the  things  near  at  hand. 

But  this  should  not  prevent  your  getting 
from  the  hbraries,  books  of  scientific  interest 
and  exploration.  You  should  go  often  to  the 
hbrary  and  visit  this  department  and  see  what 
new  books  there  are  and  look  them  over  and 
frequently  have  them  by  for  reference  and  al- 
ways be  selecting  materials  from  them  which 
are  suited  to  your  i^urpose.  You  will  be  care- 
ful to  observe  the  difference  between  the  books 
which  deal  with  the  subject  in  a  more  or  less 
scientific  manner,  and  those  which  merely  re- 
cord pleasant  tales.  Be  careful  not  to  confuse 
newspaper  stories  about  animals  with  scientific 
knowledge.  The  more  faithfully  you  do  the 
work  of  observation  and  comparison,  especially 
with  a  microscope,  noting  how  everything  oper- 
ates under  law,  the  less  you  will  be  deceived. 

You  will  see  so  much  evidence  of  design  and 
purpose  in  the  habits  of  animals,  that  it  will  be 
next  to  impossible  for  you  to  avoid  raising  the 
question  of  instinct  and  reason  in  animals. 
On  these  points  there  is  much  difference  of 
opinion  and  naturally  many  scientists,  espe- 
cially those  who  have  given  their  lives  to  close 


260  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

and  patient  study  of  the  habits  of  animals,  be- 
lieve that  they  reason  like  man,  only  differing 
in  degree.  It  is  certain  that  animals  do  things 
that  look  like  reasoning,  namely,  exercise  the 
power  of  choice,  show  preferences  as  to  color 
and  odor,  and  have  their  likes  and  dislikes,  just 
like  human  beings.  Then  again  they  show 
contentment  and  anger,  they  have  feelings  and 
seem  to  have  memory.  We  know  that  they 
select  special  foods  and  flowers,  and  seem  to 
show  discrimination  often  in  a  high  degree. 
Then  again,  animals  show  the  social  spirit 
often  in  a  degi'ee  which  might  well  be  emulated 
by  some  men.  Those  that  live  in  colonies  show 
that  they  know  how  to  get  along  together,  dis- 
tribute their  tasks,  mind  their  own  business, 
and  bear  their  own  burdens.  They  seem  to 
know  how  to  punish  promptly  and  effectively, 
those  that  disobey  the  rules  and  have  a  high 
sense  both  of  order  and  discipHne.  They  seem 
to  have  the  sense  of  direction  as  in  the  migra- 
tion of  birds,  and  often  exhibit  wonderful  pow- 
ers in  getting  back  to  the  nest  when  they  are 
lost.  Wliether  the  "instinct  is  unconscious 
reason,"  or  not,  it  is  a  powerful  thing.  What 
is  very  certain  is,  that  naturahsts  who  have 
close  contact  with  animals  and  who  observe 
them  for  years  incline  more  and  more  to  the 
idea  that  animals  have  powers  like  those  of 


ZOOLOGY  261 

man  though  in  a  lower  degree.  To  be  sure 
inherited  habits  may  account  for  a  great  deal 
but  not  for  all.  The  operation  of  the  great 
powerful  laws  like  those  of  struggle  for  hfe, 
reproduction,  food,  and  the  like  compel  very- 
astounding  things  and  show  how  strong  these 
laws  are.  These  are  the  main  things  to  learn 
because  their  mastery  has  a  no  less  powerful 
influence  upon  our  own  conception  of  human 
life  and  work.  At  any  rate,  if  instinct  is  the 
sum  of  inherited  habits  in  animals,  we  may 
learn  a  good  deal  about  its  influence  for  our- 
selves of  our  own  habits  and  look  out  for  them. 
It  is  hardly  possible  in  study  hke  this,  to 
avoid  the  question  of  the  relation  of  man  to 
the  rest  of  animal  creation.  Nor  is  it  neces- 
sary that  it  should  be  avoided.  The  animal 
nature  of  man  is  so  pronounced,  so  ever  pres- 
ent, and  periodically  manifesting  itself  in  so 
many  ways,  that  his  relation  to  the  animal 
world  may  well  be  taken  up  and  general  ideas 
about  it  inculcated.  Of  course,  this  is  not  the 
place,  nor  is  childhood  the  time,  to  go  into  the 
graver  questions.  But  the  general  resem- 
blances between  man  and  the  higher  anthro- 
poids may  not  be  overlooked.  The  difl^cring 
characteristics  of  the  various  races  of  men  may 
well  be  pointed  out,  and  the  relation  of  man  to 
his  own  environment  may  well  be  taught  while 


262  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

you  are  showing  what  happens  to  animals  if 
you  change  their  geographical  relations  and 
with  these,  their  food,  the  soil  on  which  they 
live,  the  climate  which  affects  them,  and  the 
companionships  in  which  they  have  to  live  and 
move  and  have  their  being.  All  this  in  ani- 
mals in  a  detached  kind  of  way,  is  interesting 
enough.  It  becomes  of  acute  and  burning  in- 
terest when  ajDphed  to  ourselves. 

Nor  is  it  without  special  interest  at  this  pres- 
ent time.  JNIan  is  being  made  over  by  the  in- 
ventions which  are  changing  his  nature  and 
habits.  For  example,  the  ease  wuth  which  we 
are  transported  by  motor  cars  and  other  ve- 
hicles from  one  place  to  another  is  making 
walking  less  and  less  a  habit.  How  will  that 
effect  the  legs  of  the  future  generations  ?  The 
same  is  true  about  our  food.  What  kind  of 
teeth  will  the  future  generations  have  with  all 
their  food  prepared  for  them?  What  kind  of 
stomachs  will  they  have,  with  the  things  they 
put  into  them?  What  kind  of  eyes  will  they 
have,  considering  the  new  influences  which  are 
affecting  them?  All  these  things  may  very 
reasonably  be  discussed  as  showing  the  effect 
of  habits,  surroundings  and  natural  forces 
upon  the  life  of  man. 

But  along  with  this  come  the  questions  of 
race    amalgamation.     The    so-called    inferior 


ZOOLOGY  263 

races  are  not  disappearing.  They  are  increas- 
ing. They  will  be  in  closer  contact  in  the  fu- 
ture with  the  white  races  than  ever  before. 
They  will  learn,  are,  in  fact,  learning  now,  not 
only  the  strength  but  also  the  weaknesses  of 
the  white  races:  The  troops  from  India,  for 
example,  and  Africa,  must  be  getting  a  great 
deal  of  education  about  their  white  brothers  in 
the  trenches  in  France  at  the  present  moment. 
How  will  this  affect  them  when  they  get  back 
home  and  spread  abroad  the  knowledge  of 
what  they  have  learned?  What  will  the  gen- 
eral attitude  of  European  races  be  in  the  fu- 
ture toward  the  Asiatic  races?  Will  they 
mingle  ?  And  if  they  mingle  in  commerce  and 
war,  will  they  not  mingle  in  other  things  too? 
Is  not  the  possibility  of  these  races  being 
crossed  in  sight?  How  will  that  affect  civiliza- 
tion? All  these  are  very  real  things  and  chil- 
dren now  living  will  have  to  make  some  very 
important  decisions  relative  to  these  questions. 
Moreover  the  general  laws  which  we  have 
looked  into,  of  the  struggle  for  existence,  the 
preparations  for  aggression  and  defense,  the 
measures  for  the  security,  and  growth  of  off- 
spring, what  is  the  significance  of  these  things 
in  the  larger  area  of  man's  future?  All  this 
shows  how  important  it  is  that  there  should  be 
in  the  background,  a  wider  knowledge  of  these 


261  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

processes  as  they  exist  in  the  animal  world,  and 
as  a  part  of  the  general  laws  of  life,  higher  and 
lower  alike.  We  have  seen  how  in  the  war 
now  raging  all  the  higher  interests  of  life  have 
become  submerged  in  the  brute  struggle  for 
physical  conquest.  But  into  this  struggle 
have  been  brought,  for  the  first  time,  the  high- 
est brain  developments,  the  best  resources  of 
the  intellect,  and  they  have  all  been  laid  at  the 
feet  of  the  war  machines  of  the  fighting  na- 
tions. Notice  too,  while  you  are  about  it,  how 
the  war  operating  as  a  new  environment  is 
changing  governments,  altering  the  course  of 
political  development,  breeding  new  and  dif- 
ferent ideals  of  national  life,  and  the  relation 
of  the  individual  to  his  government  and  his 
fellow  men.  Thus  we  are  seeing  in  the  realm 
of  man  w^hat  we  have  been  talking  about  in  the 
changes  that  take  place  among  the  lower  ani- 
mals. 

In  a  similar  way,  notice  how  this  same  w^ar 
is  giving  the  Avorld  new  ideas  of  food  and  the 
amount  needful  for  life.  Notice  how  it  is  af- 
fecting ideas  of  economy  and  the  pubhc  control 
of  every  necessity  of  the  nations.  All  these, 
when  they  have  done  their  work,  will  leave  the 
people  subjected  to  them  very  unlike  what 
they  have  been  before  these  changes  were  in- 
troduced.   From  this  visible  example,  you  can 


ZOOLOGY  265 

easily  work  backward  to  the  time  when  there 
were  none  of  the  things  which  we  count  so  com- 
mon to-day,  and  man  had  to  get  along  without 
them  and  so  steadily  you  get  back  to  the  primi- 
tive man,  who  was  so  nearly  like  an  animal  that 
he  was  subject  ahnost  exactly  to  the  kind  of 
laws  that  we  have  seen  operating  upon  animal 
life.  He  lived  very  like  them,  for  he  had  no 
houses ;"  he  ate  the  things  they  did,  because  he 
knew  nothing  about  cooking;  he  had  tlie  in- 
stincts and  the  abilities  which  they  had,  of 
quick  observation,  higher  sense  development, 
to  make  up  for  his  lack  of  mental  development. 
Hence  he  could  run  and  jumi?  and  swim  and 
hear  and  smell  as  we  cannot,  having  no  need 
for  these  highly  developed  powers  as  he  had. 
The  story  of  man's  own  development  on  the 
animal  side  should  be  taucrht  because  it  will 
explain  many  things  which  if  understood  and 
recognized  will  help  to  greater  self-control  and 
through  this  to  a  higher  efficiency  and  useful- 
ness. 

Not  far  from  tlie  spot  where  I  am  writing 
this,  there  is  a  house  which  is  more  than  one 
hundred  and  fifty  years  old.  It  has  been  in- 
habited by  successive  generations  and  as  you 
go  about  it  and  study  the  structure  as  it  stands 
to-day,  you  can  see  the  marks  of  each  genera- 
tion.    The  architecture  has  undergone  a  va- 


2GG  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

riety  of  changes,  parts  have  been  added  here 
and  there  with  httlc  regard  to  plan,  because 
there  was  no  plan.  Each  generation  made  it- 
self comfortable  and  added  what  it  needed, 
with  little  reference  to  looks  or  indeed  any- 
thing but  its  own  satisfaction.  But  this  is  not 
all.  If  you  go  inside,  you  will  see  that  the  very 
timbers  have  changed.  The  great  timbers 
which  were  once  easily  obtainable  are  not  in 
the  newer  parts.  In  the  older  portions,  the 
great  broad  boards  in  the  floors  were  hewn 
with  an  adze  because  there  were  no  saw-mills 
to  make  them.  The  newer  parts  give  the  evi- 
dence of  the  existence  of  machinery,  which  the 
earlier  generations  did  not  even  dream  about, 
much  less  use.  So,  on  every  side,  you  see  how 
time  and  circumstances  have  changed  not  only 
the  internal  and  external  appearance  of  this 
house  but  the  very  stuff  of  which  it  is  made. 

Thus  it  has  been  with  man.  Thus  it  has 
been  with  the  world  of  nature  and  in  animals 
we  can  see  this  process  taking  place  in  the 
cross-breeding  and  the  development  of  special 
types.  Only  a  year  ago,  we  were  greatly  af- 
flicted in  this  region  with  brown-tail  moths. 
This  year  there  are  few,  almost  none.  Why? 
Because  the  brown-tails  mated  with  another 
kind  and  produced  a  degenerate  type,  which  is 
not  nearly  so  harmful  and  the  new  worm  is 


ZOOLOGY  267 

distinctly  less  strong  and  capable  and  able  to 
cause  trouble.  It  therefore  fell  an  easy  vic- 
tim to  a  parasite  which  took  them  off  by  thou- 
sands. The  caterpillar  nests  full  of  these  dead 
hybrids  tell  the  story  and  such  stories  are  con- 
stantly being  enacted,  not  only  among  the  ani- 
mals, but  also  among  men.  Children  who  are 
made  to  see  these  things  in  operation,  will  have 
a  much  more  rational  conception  of  life,  be 
subject  to  fewer  illusions  in  life  and  better 
able  to  cope  with  the  problems  with  which 
they  must  grapple  when  mature  life  is  upon 
them. 


CIIxlPTER  XI 

GEOLOGY 

The  study  of  geology  like  that  of  every 
other  science,  should  he  begun  by  a  sort  of 
orientation  in  the  use  of  the  various  terms  em- 
ployed. It  will  be  interesting  to  compare  the 
words  geology,  geography,  geometry,  and 
other  similar  words,  with  a  discourse  on  the 
distinctions  involved  and  the  resemblances 
in  the  kind  of  knowledge  which  they  connote. 
This  can  readily  be  done  on  some  occasion 
when  synonyms  are  studied,  or  other  word 
studies  are  made,  and  will  themselves  form  an 
introduction  to  the  subject. 

This  study  also  assumes  a  few  other  things 
which  very  likely  you  have  worked  out  in  the 
study  of  geography,  like  the  elements  of  the 
solar  system,  the  relation  of  the  earth  to  the 
sun,  and  the  action  of  the  sun  upon  the  earth. 
You  have  already  noticed  this  and  made  use 
of  it  in  relation  to  plants  and  animals.  You 
have  talked  about  the  seasons  and  the  changes 
of  chmate  and  by  this  means  you  will  have  al- 
ready prepared  for  the  more  detailed  talks 
about  this  science. 

268 


GEOLOGY  269 

Geology  is  eminently  an  outdoor  study, 
though  this  may  be  said  of  all  the  sciences  in 
one  way  and  another.  Still  because  it  deals 
mainly  with  tlie  forces  tvhich  have  made  the 
earth  tchat  it  is,  and  aims  to  follow  these 
forces  to  their  beginnings,  and  then  follow 
them  in  their  work  and  variations,  under  dif- 
fering conditions,  you  can  begin  almost  any- 
where. We  began  in  the  garden,  with  the 
action  of  the  spray,  which  after  some  time  be- 
gan to  make  little  streams  and  wear  away  cer- 
tain little  beds  and  then  carry  away  the  soil 
from  one  spot  and  deposit  it  in  another. 
From  this  we  pointed  out  that  what  was  here 
taking  place,  on  a  minute  scale  was  really  what 
happened  in  the  earth  on  a  large  scale,  and 
made  the  vast  modifications  which  could  be 
seen  anywhere.  In  fact,  we  often  set  the 
water  working  in  various  ways  in  order  to 
produce  some  of  these  results  so  that  the  ac- 
tion could  be  iDlainly  seen. 

You  will  probably  find  it  easiest  therefore 
to  begin  the  study  with  observation  of  the  ac- 
tion of  water.  Rivers,  streams,  any  running 
water,  will  illustrate  some  of  the  more  funda- 
mentals, and  you  will  have  great  pleasures  in 
seeing  these  principles  recognized  from  time 
to  time,  while  you  are  apparently  not  doing  any 
studying  at  all.     Whenever  we  went  fishing 


270  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

we  made  the  occasion  one  of  studying  the  ac- 
tion of  water.  .Wlienever  there  was  a  rain- 
storm we  went  out  into  the  rain,  and  especially, 
when  there  was  a  heavy  rainfall  noticed  the 
changes  which  the  water  had  made.  We  no- 
ticed from  Summer  to  Summer,  what  changes 
had  taken  place  in  the  course  of  familiar 
streams  and  places  where  the  action  of  the 
water  could  be  noticed.  We  took  occasion  to 
point  out  in  times  when  the  water  in  the  river 
was  low,  how  the  changes  were  being  wrought 
out  and  when  there  was  an  overflow  from 
freshets  above,  we  noticed  the  results  of  that 
also. 

Since  so  large  a  part  of  the  earth's  surface 
has  been  made  what  it  is  by  the  action  of  water, 
and  since  this  action  is  always  the  same 
whether  it  operates  on  a  large  or  a  small  scale, 
you  have  excellent  opportunities  for  observa- 
tion. Also  it  affords  a  splendid  opportunity 
for  making  rough  draicings  and  thus  leading 
forward  into  a  general  study  of  topography. 
It  leads  to  noticing  elevations  and  depressions, 
and  this  again  leads  to  measurements  of  one 
kind  and  another,  by  means  of  which,  many 
forms  of  the  most  fundamental  thing  in  all 
science  can  be  taught  and  mastered,  namely, 
exact  measurement.  You  can  teach  the 
tables  of  measurement  in  this  collateral  way. 


GEOLOGY  271 

and  the  child  learn  them  without  ever  having 
had  to  face  them  formally  and  indeed  often 
without  ever  remembering  when  they  were 
learned.  Thus  when  you  measure  the  circum- 
ference of  a  tree,  and  then  figure  on  its  diam- 
eter, on  the  rate  of  growth  and  the  like,  or  as 
you  measure  the  rate  at  which  the  water  wears 
away  the  hank  of  a  stream,  and  many  such 
things,  inculcate  the  habit  of  exact  measure- 
ment and  teach  the  method  of  its  performance 
at  the  same  time. 

Then  you  will  deal  with  the  things  which 
show  the  action  of  water.  Pebbles,  small 
stones,  which  have  become  rounded  by  the  ac- 
tion of  water  and  by  rubbing  against  each 
other,  are  very  interesting  in  this  connection. 
We  taught  them  in  connection  with  the  story 
of  David  and  Goliath  when  it  says,  that  David 
"took  five  smooth  stones  from  the  brook"  for 
his  sling,  and  we  reconstructed  the  geological 
action  of  the  water  in  framing  those  stones  for 
their  use  in  the  sling,  and  the  reasons  why 
David  chose  them,  and  made  it  an  interesting 
conjunction  of  the  alliance  between  natural  and 
moral  forces  for  the  achievement  of  the  i)ur- 
poses  of  God.  You  will  find  many  such  oc- 
casions. 

Then,  again,  you  will  notice  and  show  how 
water  is  a  great  carrying  agent  and  what  stu- 


272  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

pendous  results  have  come  about  by  this  force. 
You  can  easily  show  in  a  glass  of  water,  how 
sedimentation  takes  place  and  you  can  from 
the  action  of  flowing  water  show  what  the  ac- 
tion of  ice  is  and  so  lead  up  to  the  great  gla- 
cial epoch  and  what  that  did  for  the  earth. 
You  can  show  how  ice  can  carry  great  masses 
of  stone,  and  very  likely  you  will  not  have  to 
go  very  far,  to  jfind  some  boulder  that  has  been 
carried  many  hundreds  of  miles  from  its  na- 
tive place,  to  be  where  it  is.  You  will  show 
how^  these  stones  and  the  smaller  ones  are  grad- 
ually broken  up  not  only  by  bumping  against 
each  other,  but  by  the  action  of  the  water  in 
freezing  in  the  crevices,  which  finally  breaks 
them  up  and  then  grinds  them  into  fine  parti- 
cles which  are  thereby  more  readily  trans- 
ported. 

You  will  also  notice  the  location  of  the 
stones,  especially  the  larger  ones  and  ask  why 
they  are  w'here  they  are,  rather  than  in  some 
other  place.  In  fact,  you  will  do  just  what 
you  do  with  plants.  Why  is  it  here  rather 
than  in  some  other  place?  And  having  asked 
that  question,  you  will  set  about  finding  the 
reasons.  Then  again  you  will  find  large 
masses  of  earth  very  much  mixed  in  roics  or 
mounds  and  you  will  ask  yourself  how  that 
came  about,  and  perhaps  in  a  given  region 


GEOLOGY  273 

you  will  be  able  to  follow  out  the  line  of  such 
deposits.  Thus  you  will  find  out  where  cer- 
tain kinds  of  geological  action  have  ended. 
And  you  will  see  what  they  have  left  and  when 
this  process  has  been  repeated  several  times 
you  will  have  shown  how  we  determine  certain 
geological  results  from  these  investigations. 

Sometimes  you  will  be  going  by  a  road 
where  there  has  been  some  rather  deep  ex- 
cavating necessary,  for  the  levelling  of  the 
road.  You  will  notice  the  stratification  and 
often  you  will  be  able  to  show  very  distinctly 
the  layers  in  which  the  deposits  have  been 
placed  where  they  are.  Often  you  will  find 
a  special  kind  of  a  boulder  sticking  out,  whose 
ancestry  you  will  trace  out  and  tell  where  it 
came  from.  This  you  can  very  readily  do. 
Often  you  will  find  the  same  kind  of  a  boulder 
in  different  places  and  have  an  interesting 
time  comparing  the  differing  situations  and 
the  causes  which  produced  them. 

Then,  again,  you  will  notice  how  sand  is 
formed  and  the  different  kinds  of  soil  and 
learn  what  that  involves.  How  soil  is 
changed  by  the  infusion  of  new  elements 
brought  by  the  water,  and  especially  by  the 
carrying  in  of  new  kinds  of  rock.  You  can 
readily  gather  the  various  kinds  of  rocks 
found  in  your  vicinity  and  learn  to  name  them, 


274  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

and  get  some  of  their  leading  characteristics. 
All  these  things  may  be  carried  on  coinci- 
dentally  with  your  study  of  plants  and  often 
you  will  find  a  plant  in  some  cranny  which  the 
water  has  caused  either  by  flow  or  by  frost, 
and  then  deposited  soil  enough  for  some  tiny 
plant  to  grow.  All  this  is  very  elementary, 
perfectly  simple,  but  very  fundamental.  It 
is  surprising  how  possible  it  is  for  people  to 
go  through  the  world,  and  see  all  these  things 
and  never  exhibit  the  slightest  curiosity  about 
them. 

From  these  simpler  forms  of  the  action  of 
water  you  can  go  on  to  those  of  wider  scope. 
Mountains  and  valleys,  the  liills  and  the  rivers, 
the  lakes  and  their  sides  or  hanks  or  shores,  are 
all  material  for  much  investigation  from  the 
pebbles  on  the  beach  to  the  great  cliffs  that 
overhang  and  awe  on  the  mountain  sides. 
Thus  you  will  come  to  some  of  the  more  tre- 
mendous geological  forces.  You  can  here 
deal  with  the  theories  of  the  earth's  interior, 
the  action  of  fire  and  heat  and  you  can  often 
see  how  the  masses  of  stone  lie  on  the  moun- 
tain side.  You  can  oj^en  up  the  whole  subject 
of  the  earth's  crust,  and  how  it  was  formed 
and  what  is  happening  to  it  all  the  time. 

You  can,  at  this  point,  vary  the  subject  by 
taking  up  some  of  the  great  upheavals  of  his- 


GEOLOGY  275 

tory,  the  great  earthquakes  and  will  find  it 
interesting,  not  merely  on  the  geological  side, 
but  likewise  on  the  side  of  history  and  human 
interests.  There  have  been  enough  of  these, 
even  lately,  and  there  are  some  going  on  all 
the  time  apparently,  to  make  it  easily  possible 
to  link  this  subject  wath  very  present  day 
affairs.  Earthquakes  may  very  easily  make 
your  point  of  departure  for  teaching  not  only 
a  great  deal  about  the  earth,  and  its  surface, 
and  its  interior,  and  its  changes,  but  hardly 
less  of  its  effects  upon  mankind  and  civiliza- 
tion and  the  like.  JNIake  everything  tell 
and  pictorialize  everything.  Pictures  of  such 
scenes  are  easily  accessible,  and  show,  not  only 
the  powerful  forces  at  work,  but  also  the  fear- 
ful effects  which  they  leave  upon  the  land- 
scape and  upon  the  people  who  come  under 
their  terrible  influence.  Often  you  can  get 
some  literary  picture,  like  that  of  the  earth- 
quake and  the  eruption  of  Vesuvius  described 
in  the  Last  Days  of  Pompeii.  Never  fail  to 
link  all  these  things  with  some  literary  form,  if 
it  is  possible,  some  book,  some  picture,  some 
fine  description.  If  you  will  yourself  read  a 
book  like  Professor  Wright's  Ice  Age  in 
North  America,  or  his  Greenland's  Ice  Fields 
and  Life  in  the  North  Atlantic,  you  will  have 
all  the  material  you  need,  made  to  your  hand. 


276  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

Then  when  there  is  a  flood  you  can  make 
a  beautiful  play  hour  in  the  garden  by  making 
a  small  flood  of  the  child's  own.  The  build- 
ing of  little  dams  is  a  favorite  play  of  children 
in  any  case.  You  can  show  these  things  in 
comiection  with  the  recreation  time  and  give 
important  names  and  knowledge  without  the 
semblance  of  formal  teaching.  Indeed  all 
natural  phenomena  as  they  are  reported  are 
materials  for  your  purpose.  Write  to  the 
Geological  Survey  at  Washington,  or  -v^Tite  to 
your  congressman  and  get  him  to  send  you  a 
list  of  the  interesting  things  the  Government 
prints  for  free  distribution.  You  will  get 
much  information  about  the  soils  and  the  geo- 
logical formations  of  your  ozcn  vicinity  and 
will  find  it  very  interesting  and  often  enter- 
taining. 

Often  you  will  find  the  dried  up  beds  of 
streams  a  good  opportunity  for  teaching,  also 
the  paths  w^hich  the  Spring  freshets  or  the 
melting  ice  have  made  in  the  woods,  evidence 
of  the  work  of  water  as  it  affects  plant  hfe. 
Sometimes  you  can  see  how  certain  foliage  in- 
dicates that  the  plants  have  foUotced  the  icatcr 
courses.  This  is  especially  interesting  when 
you  are  rambling  in  the  woods  for  Spring 
flowers.  Show,  too,  how  heat  from  the  sini 
affects  these  thinos  as  vou  can  readilv  do  by 

Oft.  »  •• 


GEOLOGY  277 

contrasting  those  spots  where  the  sun  shines 
through,  and  those  where  the  density  of  the 
fohage  prevents  that  heat  from  reaching  the 
soil.  These  things  are  so  obvious,  that  even  a 
small  child  can  readily  be  made  to  perceive  the 
difference. 

If  you  live  by  the  sea  shore  or  indeed  if  you 
do  not,  the  action  of  the  tides  forms  an  inter- 
esting introduction  to  the  subject  of  the  ocean 
and  the  action  of  water  on  a  vast  scale.  You 
will  often  see  the  curious  formations  of  the 
rocks  on  the  shore,  and  sometimes  you  will  see 
after  a  storm,  evidence  of  the  amazing  power 
of  the  waves.  If  you  live  by  a  lake,  greater 
or  smaller,  that  too,  will  illustrate  much. 
Find  out  the  geological  history  of  it,  and  often 
simply  by  sitting  by  it,  and  looking  around 
you  can  show  what  geological  forces  have  been 
at  work.  Sometimes  there  will  be  a  great  in- 
tervale or  large  area  and  then  you  can  show 
how  the  subsidence  of  water  has  formed  ter- 
races and  the  low  levels  and  was  gradually  left 
in  the  bed  of  the  living  stream.  Sharp  turns 
in  the  river  or  stream  will  often  show  how  the 
courses  change  and  you  can  readily  see  by  the 
action  of  the  currents  what  curious  results  are 
formed  by  the  striking  by  the  water  of  some 
obstruction,  and  what  happens  till  it  wears 
it  away  or  breaks  through  it. 


278  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

When  you  are  dealing  with  the  ocean  you 
may  well  introduce  the  subject  of  ocean  cur- 
rents and  the  wonderful  story  which  that  un- 
folds. You  can  take  the  Gulf  Stream,  for 
example,  because  it  is  so  well  known  and  show 
what  tremendous  results  come  from  that 
warm  stream  across  the  Atlantic,  affecting  not 
merely  ocean  travel,  but  hardly  less  climate 
and  through  it  civilization  and  the  course  of 
history,  the  relation  of  nations  and  the  devel- 
opment of  particular  types  of  civilization. 
You  can  often  link  tJie  history  of  a  nation  with 
its  geology.  You  can  discuss  the  effect  on 
the  character  of  people  by  the  fact  that  they 
live  in  highlands  or  lowlands,  in  the  interior, 
or  by  the  sea,  and  by  this  means  once  more 
link  the  action  of  great  natural  laws  w^ith  the 
story  of  the  life  of  man  upon  the  earth. 

Sometimes  you  will  find  fossils  or  going  to 
some  nearby  museum  you  will  see  all  kinds  of 
animal  remains  which  have  been  found  in  the 
rocks.  Sometimes  you  will  see  the  footprints 
of  reptiles  and  birds,  and  all  this  will  open  the 
subject  of  the  relation  of  geological  conditions 
to  the  state  of  animal  life.  In  a  similar  way 
j^ou  can  trace  through  the  corals,  the  rise  and 
growth  of  islands  or  the  extension  of  the  land 
and  the  results  which  have  been  achieved  by 
reclaiming  parts  of  the  land  submerged  for- 


GEOLOGY  279 

merly  by  the  sea.  You  will  find  it  interesting 
often  to  compare  the  coastline  of  some  of  the 
nations  of  antiquity  with  their  present  coast- 
line, showing  that  it  has  changed. 

Any  unusual  natural  phenomenon  should 
arrest  your  attention  and  make  you  ask  how 
it  came  about.  Sharp  declivities  or  narrow 
gorges  or  water-falls  great  or  small,  all  pre- 
sent problems  which  are  in  your  line  not  to 
solve,  of  course,  but  to  talk  about  and  impress 
as  a  part  of  the  story  of  the  earth.  The 
course  of  streams,  the  direction  of  their  flow, 
and  the  curious  turns  and  twists  which  they 
often  make,  are  all  a  part  of  this  sort  of  work. 
If  you  are  in  the  region  where  there  are  mines 
of  any  description,  or  quarries,  that  again  is 
an  opportunity  for  you.  It  will  be  pleasant 
exercise  and  employment  to  take  your  little 
hammer  with  you  and  your  chisel,  and  knock 
out  or  chip  off  portions  of  the  rocks  for  exami- 
nation under  a  magnifjnng  glass  at  home. 

A  particularly  interesting  and  fertilizing 
branch  of  this  study  is  that  of  glaciers  and  the 
action  of  glaciers.  That  is  too  large  a  sub- 
ject for  consideration  in  a  little  sketch  like 
this,  but  you  will  find  plenty  of  material  in 
your  library  which  will  not  only  be  interesting 
as  regards  the  glaciers,  but  will  do  much  in  a 
literary  way  besides.     Pictures  of  the  great 


280  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

mountain  ranges,  of  the  Rockies,  of  the  Alps, 
of  the  Canadian  Rockies,  are  all  easily  acces- 
sible, and  a  comparison  of  them  will  be  found 
of  great  interest  and  the  books  about  them  full 
of  fascinating  material  which  has  literary  as 
well  as  scientific  interest.  Often,  in  books  of 
travel  which  you  will  read  or  cause  to  be  read, 
you  will  come  upon  some  strange  information 
as  to  geological  formations  which,  of  course, 
you  will  seize  upon  for  your  purposes  here. 
But  esi^ecially  the  study  of  the  great  glacial 
epoch  in  North  America  will  open  a  vast  store- 
house of  knowledge  and  with  it  many  other 
things  which  will  be  useful  in  other  fields  also. 
Often  particular  localities  make  the  subject 
of  intense  interest  like  the  study  of  the  Grand 
Canon  or  the  Yosemite  V alley j  about  which 
all  sorts  of  information  can  easily  be  obtained. 
But  keep  steadily  to  the  scientific  aspect  of  the 
subject  though  you  will  use  the  pictorial  and 
human  interest  of  the  subject  to  make  the  sci- 
entific side  entertaining.  Always  keep  in 
mind  that  though  you  are  entertaining,  your 
purpose  is  to  instruct.  Use  the  scientific 
terms.  And  if  you  mean  erosion,  say  so.  If 
you  mean  sedimentation  say  that.  And  show 
what  it  is.  Utilize  all  the  knowledge  that  you 
get  from  other  fields  here,  notably  that  from 
the  history  and  life  of  plants,  with  the  gases 


GEOLOGY  281 

which  enter  into  their  Hfe,  and  the  forces  which 
modify  them.  The  air,  the  wind,  the  sun,  the 
soil,  and  all  that  in  them  is,  are  a  part  of  this 
study.  This  does  not  mean  that  j-ou  will  al- 
ways, or  even  generally,  deal  with  these  things 
as  you  would  with  mature  people,  but  when 
you  do,  do  it  in  scientific  terms. 

A  very  good  and  simple  plan  for  the  wider 
general  geological  outlook  is  to  get  a  geologi- 
cal map  of  the  state  where  you  happen  to  live, 
or  of  the  country,  and  get  a  general  view  of 
the  whole  region,  its  mountains,  its  valleys,  its 
lakes  and  rivers,  and  the  various  kinds  of  soil. 
Link  this  with  the  location  of  the  centres  of 
population  and  the  industries  and  the  natural 
products,  showing  why  certain  industries  are 
where  they  are,  and  how  the  organization  of 
industry  must  to  a  certain  degree  follow 
the  great  natural  distribution  of  raw  mate- 
rial. Compare  the  agricultural  regions  in 
this  respect  with  the  manufacturing  regions. 
Compare  the  great  mining  regions  and  their 
products,  with  those  of  other  regions.  Often- 
times it  will  make  an  interesting  experiment 
to  go  into  the  composition  of  certain  articles 
and  ask  where  the  material  came  from  and 
then  work  out  where  it  probahly  was  made. 

For  this  purpose  you  may  take,  let  us  say, 
coal.     You  can  very  readily  get  all  the  mate- 


282  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

rial  you  can  possibly  use.  The  composition 
and  formation  of  the  coal  beds,  the  rise  of  in- 
dustries because  of  the  abundance  of  fuel,  and 
the  correlation  of  many  kinds  of  activity  on 
this  account,  makes  a  most  interesting  story. 
Or  you  can  take  limestone  and  the  settlement 
of  certain  populations  by  reason  of  the  hme- 
stone  in  the  soil,  will  disclose  some  very  curi- 
ous facts  as  to  the  settlements  in  our  own  land, 
by  populations  who  sought  soil  like  that  to 
which  they  were  accustomed  in  Europe.  Or, 
again,  the  use  of  certain  kinds  of  building 
materials  because  they  happened  to  be  plenti- 
ful, causing  decisive  influence  in  the  habits  of 
the  people  by  reason  of  the  houses  in  which 
they  lived,  all  deal  with  this  subject.  Every- 
thing leads  hack  to  the  soil,  the  earth  which  is 
the  mother  of  us  all.  If  you  want  to  give  a 
chemical  turn  to  the  subject,  write  to  the  De- 
partment of  Agriculture  and  get  some  of  its 
publications  about  the  soils  and  what  may  he 
done  to  change  them  or  enrich  them  and  make 
them  more  productive.  One  thing  always 
leads  to  another,  but  you  are  always  adding 
to  the  knowledge  of  the  child  and  telling  it  the 
things  which  will  presently  have  very  much 
more  meaning  than  they  seem  to  have  at  the 
outset,  and  will  lead  it  naturally  and  habit- 


GEOLOGY  28S 

ually  to  correlate  things  which  often  seem  to 
be  very  widely  apart. 

Volcanoes  forni  another  interesting  branch 
of  the  subject  and  though  you  will  deal  with 
it  only  superficially  you  will  nevertheless  be 
laying  important  foundations.  The  stories 
of  eruptions  make  very  vivid  reading  and  are 
listened  to  with  breathless  interest.  The  spec- 
tacle of  a  fiery  mountain,  pouring  out  smoke 
and  flame  and  streams  of  lava,  give  you  plenty 
of  scope,  not  only  for  all  your  descriptive 
powers,  but  with  it  all  you  may  tell  the  story 
of  the  untamed  forces  of  nature  about  which 
we  have  not  yet  heard  the  last  word.  There 
are  many  interesting  volumes  in  almost  every 
library  on  this  subject. 

You  will  also  find  that  as  you  get  better  ac- 
quainted with  the  stages  of  periods  of  the 
earth's  development,  there  is  a  regidar  ascend- 
ing movement  in  the  animal  world  and  you 
can  thus  easily  and  naturally  correlate  the 
stages  of  animal  development  with  the  periods 
of  the  earth's  life  also.  Making  tables  of  this 
sort  is  interesting  work  and  when  there  has 
been  enough  of  a  foundation  laid,  and  it  does 
not  require  as  much  as  one  might  suppose,  it 
makes  a  very  interesting  exercise  to  locate,  in 
time,  the  varieties  of  animal  life,  beginning  at 


284  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

the  lowest.  This  will  also  give  you  an  en- 
tirely new  field  for  linguistic  studfj,  because 
your  study  will  bring  you  into  contact  with 
any  number  of  strange  names  and  their  his- 
tory will  supply  your  material  for  linguistic 
work.  Your  experience  with  the  geological 
vocabulary/  will  be  one  of  the  interesting 
things  in  connection  with  it,  both  for  your  own 
enjoyment  and  that  of  the  children.  Your 
main  purpose  being  fertilization  you  will 
dwell  on  the  words  and  their  use,  and  when 
you  have  occasion  in  reading  other  material  to 
notice  one  or  more  of  these  geological  terms, 
make  use  at  once  of  your  opportunity  to  fix 
the  knowledge  which  you  had  given  when  you 
had  this  subject  specifically  in  mind. 

Geology  is  in  general  the  most  comprehen- 
sive of  all  the  sciences  because  it  is,  according 
to  Le  Conte,  ''the  history  of  the  earth  and  its 
inhabitants  as  revealed  in  its  structure  and  as 
interpreted  by  causes  still  in  operation/* 
This  takes  in  pretty  much  everything  as  you 
see,  because  it  assumes  a  know^ledge  of  astron- 
omy, of  physics,  and  chemistry,  of  mineralogy, 
and  zoology,  and  botany,  because  the  plant 
and  animal  life  are  so  closely  related  with  the 
earth's  development.  For  this  reason  there 
is  hardly  any  branch  of  knowledge  which  does 
not  link  itself  somewhere  with  geology,  and 


GEOLOGY  285 

this  gives  it  living  vital  interest,  because  the 
causes  which  made  the  earth  in  the  past,  what 
it  is  noWj  are,  many  of  them,  in  active  opera- 
tion now,  so  that  presently  we  shall  watch  the 
earth  change  about  us  and  see  ourselves  adapt- 
ing ourselves  to  the  changes  which  take  place. 
Sometimes  we  accelerate  these  changes  by  our 
own  habits  or  works,  as  when  we  take  off,  ruth- 
lessly, the  great  forests  and  release  great 
floods  which  formerly  were  absorbed  by  the 
roots  of  the  trees  and  the  vegetation  which 
lived  with  them.  Or,  when  we  take  uj)  vast 
beds  of  minerals  and  change  the  place  of  vast 
bodies  of  the  earth.  Or,  when  we  dig  sub- 
ways or  underground  railways  and  alter  the 
course  of  subterranean  streams  or  make  other 
changes  which  vitally  affect  the  life  of  man- 
kind. And  when  you  come  to  see  the  signifi- 
cance of  all  these  things,  and  make  the  child 
see  them,  the  earth  and  the  changes  in  it  be- 
come matters  of  the  very  keenest  interest. 
The  sciences,  strictly  as  such,  when  they  come 
to  be  studied  later  will  be  doubly  interesting 
because  there  is  a  reasonable  substratum  of 
general  and  accurate  information  about  some 
of  the  more  elementary  matters. 

The  composition  and  chemical  elements  of 
rocks  will  afford  many  pleasant  experiments 
for  recreation  hours.     And  when  to  this  is 


286  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

added  the  study  of  the  characteristics  of  min- 
erals such  as  color,  form,  hardness,  lustre,  and 
the  like,  there  are  supplied  all  the  materials 
necessary  to  give  the  child  suitahle  occupation 
for  hands  as  well  as  mind. 

The  extreme  value  and  importance  of  all 
this  will  be  borne  in  upon  your  o\mi  mind,  if 
you  will  reflect  just  at  this  time  on  the  great 
importance  to  the  warring  nations  of  Europe 
of  raw  materials  to  the  nations,  and  how  im- 
portant these  things  are  to  national  life.  See 
how  important  it  is,  for  example,  to  the  na- 
tions to  have  a  large  supply  of  petroleum,  of 
copper,  or  iron  or  coal,  and  what  a  tremen- 
dous importance  suddenly  these  natural  sup- 
plies assume  to  the  nations  who  want  to  build 
ships  and  guns,  and  transport  armies,  and 
supply  them  with  food  and  otherwise  carry  on 
their  wars.  See  what  importance  scientific 
knowledge  has  played  thus  far,  and  see  how 
for  the  first  time,  science  is  recognized  as  hav- 
ing utterly  supplanted  the  qualities  of  per- 
sonal heroism  and  valor  in  the  fight  of  great 
forces  by  land  or  by  sea.  For  the  first  time  in 
history,  nations  have  organized  science  hoards 
to  assist  their  army  and  navy  boards  in  the 
preparation  for  successful  war.  See  how 
great  the  changes  have  been  and  how  gas 
bombs  and  liquid  fire  and  a  vast  variety  of 


GEOLOGY  287 

other  chemical  discoveries  have  come  to  have 
a  fearful  significance  in  such  struggles.  Our 
own  country,  for  the  first  time  in  its  history, 
has  a  board  of  invention  for  its  navy  and  has 
called  such  men  as  Edison  and  others  to  bring 
the  resources  of  science  to  the  aid  of  war  prep- 
aration. 

In  the  midst  of  all  such  things  nothing  can 
be  healthier  than  to  turn  to  the  great  natural 
forces  which  the  Creator  has  placed  in  the 
earth  and  which  we  are  only  on  the  merest 
edge  of  knowing,  in  all  their  fulness  and 
power.  Where  so  much  is  done  in  the  labora- 
tory, and  where  all  that  is  done  there  has  to  be 
wrought  out  of  the  raw  materials,  it  will  be 
seen  what  an  immense  advantage  it  is  to  know 
a  few  of  these  things  early  in  life,  to  gain,  an 
adequate  understanding  of  their  significance 
later  on  in  the  more  formal  period  of  educa- 
tion. When  one  means  is  exhausted  or  de- 
stroyed, men  have  had  to  find  another  way 
and  necessity  here  as  elsewhere  has  been  the 
mother  of  invention.  See  what  has  been 
wrought  in  the  conquest  of  the  air  and  the 
submerging  of  war  craft  under  the  sea!  But 
the  air,  and  the  sea,  have  always  been  here  and 
their  possibilities  are  even  now  only  partially 
understood.  But  better  than  these  processes 
is  first  hand  contact  and  observ-ation  with  all 


288  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

these  forces  themselves  and  a  knowledge  of 
how  they  work.  Thus  is  the  mind  trained  to 
know  something  of  the  world  in  which  the  hu- 
man race  has  lived,  and  must  continue  to  live, 
and  thus  is  the  race  prepared  for  its  life  in 
the  future. 

There  is  no  reason  known  to  me  why  young 
children  should  not  be  made  to  know,  long  be- 
fore what  we  call  their  education  begins,  most 
of  these  great  elemental  powers  and  learn  to 
guide  their  thought  in  consonance  and  har- 
mony with  these  laws.  Water  wears  the  rock. 
And  these  little  streams  of  scientific  knowl- 
edge wear  away  the  mechanical  notions  of  life 
by  which  so  many  millions  of  people  live 
and  die,  without  ever  knowing  the  earth  in 
which  they  are  born  and  live  and  pass  away. 
But  they  should  know.  And  such  knowledge 
makes  for  a  higher  tj^pe  of  life.  It  makes  for 
a  more  reasoning  and  reasonable  existence. 
It  teaches  the  value  of  life  and  the  long  road 
through  which  life  has  come  to  have  the  mean- 
ing that  it  now  has  for  man.  It  leads  to  re- 
flection and  in  the  best  sense  taking  life  seri- 
ously, which  is  just  what  the  vast  mass  of  men 
do  not  do.  But  it  does,  besides  all  this,  the 
higher  work  of  naturalizing  a  man  in  his  world 
and  making  it  for  him  a  place  of  satisfaction 
and  rational  labor  and  effort. 


GEOLOGY  289 

It  does  even  more.  Personally  I  believe 
here  is  the  field  for  the  true  culture  of  the  emo- 
tions. Science  may  spiritualize  the  world  yet, 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  until  now  it  has  been 
employed  only  in  a  pagan  way.  The  spirit- 
ualizing process  begun  early,  creates  rever- 
ence for  the  work  of  God  and  as  with  the  bibli- 
cal writers,  rocks,  floods,  and  fields,  mountains, 
and  trees,  the  birds  of  the  air  and  the  fishes  of 
the  sea  all  speak  of  the  glory  of  God  and  the 
wonder  of  His  handiwork,  so  a  little  child  may 
be  led  into  the  noblest  of  spiritual  conceptions 
through  contact  with  the  world  of  God's  crea- 
tive skill  and  power. 

Every  little  geological  excursion  after  this 
manner  will  change  the  prevailing  conception 
of  a  finished  world,  into  a  fresh  one  of  a  world 
in  the  making.  It  will  lead  to  a  fresh  under- 
standing of  the  value  of  all  things.  It  will 
create  abhorrence  of  waste.  It  will  see  both 
the  power  and  the  economy  of  nature.  It 
will  cause  deep  feelings  and  dreams  about  the 
nature  and  purpose  of  life  itself.  It  has  al- 
ways been  to  me,  an  interesting  fact,  that  most 
of  the  geologists  I  have  known  have  been  men 
in  the  deepest  and  highest  sense  religious  men. 
They  went  abroad  in  God's  world  and  saw 
His  operations  in  a  big  and  divine  way.  In 
contrast  with  the  laboratory  worker,  who  felt 


200  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

the  glory  of  his  own  little  achievement,  these 
saw  the  mighty  strokes  of  great  monumental 
laws  and  saw  things  wrought  out  on  a  huge 
scale.  Huge  mountains  thrown  up  where 
none  existed  before,  vast  areas  bodily  trans- 
ported from  one  spot  in  the  earth  and  set  down 
in  another,  mighty  monoliths  lifted  as  a  child 
lifts  a  pebble  and  carried  vast  distances,  and 
then  left  in  striking  and  weird  postures  to 
arrest  the  attention  and  challenge  the  brain  of 
man !  All  these  are  the  things  you  start  in  the 
brain  of  the  child  to  think  about.  You  set  it 
to  work  on  something  which  challenges  all  its 
own  possibilities,  and  start  it  on  the  long  road 
which  has  no  ending,  the  wonder  work  of  the 
Almighty. 

Few  people  can  gaze  on  the  wonderflow  of 
Niagara  without  deep  emotion.  I  once  saw 
with  terror  the  Mississippi  overflow  in  my  boy- 
hood, so  that  in  places  it  was  twenty-five  miles 
wide.  I  have  gazed  on  the  Bernese  Oberland 
and  quivered  under  the  scintillating  beauty  of 
the  Alps,  beauty  beyond  the  descriptive  powers 
of  man.  I  have  shuddered  under  the  cliffs  of 
the  Canadian  Rockies  and  felt  an  awe,  which 
no  religious  thinking  can  possibly  produce. 
If  you  give  your  Httle  child  an  insight  into 
these  things  j^ou  are  building  the  mind  of  a 
human  being,  who  must  perforce  become  great 


GEOLOGY  291 

in  thought  and  learn  to  live  greatly  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  greatness  of  creation.  How  dif- 
ferent all  this  from  the  narrow-minded  being 
who  simply  rises,  feeds,  takes  a  trolley  to  his 
office  or  store,  and  then  back  again  at  night, 
and  never  knows  what  the  world  really  is ! 

Think  of  the  vast  masses  borne  along  stead- 
ily by  the  flowing  waters  of  the  rivers  of  the 
earth!  Think  of  the  silent  disintegration 
of  granite  chffs,  which  the  wind  is  causing 
through  the  years,  see  the  valleys  exalted  and 
the  mountains  and  hills  made  low!  Think  of 
the  fertihzing  flood  of  the  Nile,  and  the  indus- 
trial flow  of  the  Merrimac,  and  the  devastat- 
ing flow  at  times  of  the  JNIississippi !  Think 
of  the  commerce  borne  by  the  great  oceans, 
think  of  the  harbors  and  ports  of  the  world! 
Think  of  the  trade  winds  and  the  ocean  cur- 
rents! Think  of  the  mined  substances  which 
we  dig  out  of  the  darkness  of  the  bosom  of  the 
earth,  and  make  into  a  million  wonderful,  and 
useful  and  beautiful  things.  Hardly  a  child 
but  has  personal  ornaments  the  history  of 
which  scientifically  scrutinized  and  analyzed 
will  not  be  made  to  gaze  with  wonder  upon  the 
transformation  of  nature's  raw  materials  into 
the  beautiful  finished  product.  This  is  be- 
cause the  mind  of  man  has  sought  them  out, 
thought  about  them,  learned  to  separate  them. 


292  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

learned  how  they  came  about,  and  then  prac- 
ticed in  their  shaping  and  fashioning  for  the 
higher  uses  of  man.  When  you  think  of  geol- 
ogy as  embodying  this  kind  of  reflection  and 
study,  you  have  something  other  than  merely 
memorizing  the  names  of  geological  epochs, 
and  the  classification  of  strata  and  the  analyz- 
ing of  rocks  and  minerals.  You  have  here 
the  romance  of  the  earth.  And  this  is  what 
you  must  teach,  together  with  the  crude,  bare 
facts.  It  is  a  romance,  wonderful,  inspiring 
and  full  of  thrilling  situations  and  volcanic 
moments,  literally  and  emotionally. 

A  great  man  once  showed  my  children  a  bit 
of  radium,  one  of  the  earliest  and  finest  speci- 
mens in  the  country.  No  one  will  ever  be  able 
to  describe  what  was  in  their  countenances  and 
what  was  wrought  into  their  hearts  and  souls 
by  this  great  man,  as  he  talked  about  radium 
and  what  it  might  do  and  the  significance  of 
its  discovery!  But  what  Professor  ^lorse  did 
out  of  his  own  wonderful  knowledge,  you  may 
out  of  much  less  knowledge  do  for  your  own 
children,  having  first  made  your  own  heart 
and  mind  responsive  to  the  meaning  of  these 
great  natural  facts  and  forces. 

It  may  be  well  to  make  collections  of  rocks 
and  minerals  or  perhaps,  where  tliey  are  ob- 
tainable, of  the  various  kinds  of  semi-precious 


GEOLOGY  293 

stone.  All  these  things  help,  of  course,  if 
to  every  one  of  them  there  is  added  some- 
thing  of  scientific  import.  Altogether,  geo- 
logical studies  lend  themselves  most  readily  to 
the  larger  ways  of  thinking  and  supply  the 
subjects  for  reflection  upon  the  wider  aspects 
of  life  more  naturally  than  ahnost  any  other 
kind  of  scientific  studies.  It  is  more  possible 
to  generalize  about  them  for  one  thing.  They 
call  for  inferential  reasoning  for  another. 
They  are  not  so  clamorous  for  immediate  de- 
cision as  some  others,  and  all  this  tends  to 
make  them  the  mediimi  for  larger  thinking 
and  a  wider  view  of  things  than  many  others. 
Their  comprehensiveness  and  inclusiveness,  of 
course,  adds  to  this  also.  But  certainly  noth- 
ing is  so  calculated  to  open  the  minds  of  chil- 
dren and  parents  to  each  other  and  reveal 
them  to  each  other  as  to  take  little  excursions 
for  geological  study  together.  The  human 
discoveries  will  be  the  greatest  of  all ! 


CHAPTER  XII 

GEOMETRY 

In  urging  the  study  of  geometry  by  young 
children,  I  wish  to  be  understood  as  taking  up 
not  merely  that  specific  branch  of  mathemat- 
ics, but  the  general  subject,  from  geometry  as 
its  easiest  and  most  pleasant  point  of  ap- 
proach. I  have  on  many  occasions  testified  to 
my  belief  that  most  of  the  time  spent  in  math- 
ematics in  elementary  education  is  tcorse  than 
wasted,  an  opinion  which  I  acquired  from 
President  Eliot  more  than  twenty  years  ago. 
The  study  of  arithmetic  as  it  is  carried  on  by 
most  schools,  public  and  private,  is  a  waste  of 
time,  and,  as  I  believe,  a  distinct  deterrent  to 
rapid  and  effective  progress,  to  say  nothing  of 
being  a  stupid  barrier  to  advancement  in 
those  benighted  regions,  Avhere  it  is  made  the 
sine  qua  non  to  promotion.  ISIost  of  the 
mathematics,  as  thus  studied,  contribute  noth- 
ing particular  to  the  child's  knowledge,  give 
no  intellectual  stimulus,  are  utterly  barren  of 
interest  and  a  source  of  trial  to  teachers  and 
students  alike.     It  is,  of  course,  necessary  that 

294 


GEOMETRY  ^95' 

young  children  should  be  taught  numbers, 
a  matter  easily  acquired.  They  should  be 
taught  to  count,  as  they  are  taught  to  spell. 
They  should  learn  simple  addition,  sunple 
subtraction,  simple  multijMcation  and  simple 
division.  But  even  these  may  be  tauglit  col- 
laterally. The  multiplication  tables  may  be 
mastered  easily  and  musically,  if  possible,  but 
no  educational  value  should  be  attached  to 
this.  It  is  memoriter  work,  pure  and  simple, 
and  should  be  inculcated  as  such. 

But  the  whole  subject  should  be  approached 
from  an  entirely  different  end,  as  I  view  it, 
and  I  have  styled  this  geometry  because  the 
materials  are  derived  from  that  branch  of 
mathematics  most  readily.  For  example,  you 
can  teach  a  child  that  a  point  has  position  only. 
You  can  show  it  that  a  geometrical  straight 
line  is  the  shortest  distance  between  two 
points.  You  can  show  it  what  a  right  angle 
is,  an  acute  angle  and  an  obtuse  angle,  and 
with  this  instruction  you  can  teach  the  use  of 
these  words  and  their  general  place  in  English 
usage.  You  can  proceed  to  teach  about  tri- 
angles and  squares  and  rectangular  figures 
and  then  go  on  to  polygons  of  all  sizes  and 
kinds  and  in  every  case  you  are  dealing  with 
something  tangible,  concrete  and  capable  of 
immediate  and  direct  application. 


2J)6  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

111  this  manner  of  proceeding  you  can  teach 
all  the  things  that  so  much  time  is  wasted 
upon.  You  can  show  a  little  child  that  al- 
ready handles  a  tape  measure  in  making  doll 
clothes  how  to  measure  the  sides  of  any  figure; 
you  can  thus  teach  it  linear  measurement. 
You  can  take  a  checker  board  and  teach  it 
square  measure  and  do  it  in  fifteen  minutes 
and  never  have  it  forgotten.  You  can  give 
habits  of  exact  measurement,  the  basis  of  all 
scientific  knowledge,  and  you  can  teach  neces- 
sary reasoning  by  this  means  most  clearly  and 
satisfactorily. 

From  plane  surfaces  you  can  proceed  with 
ease  to  solids.  You  can  deal  with  cubes 
and  cylinders  and  you  can  teach  draning 
while  you  are  doing.  You  can  give  manual 
dexterity  and  skill  in  handling  tools  and  in- 
strmnents  while  you  are  doing  this.  You  can 
have  tables  measured,  and  floors  measured, 
and  all  kinds  of  figures  identified,  and  all 
kinds  of  forms  geometrically  identified  all  the 
time.  You  can  have  circles  drawn  and  all 
sorts  of  diameters  drawn  and  you  can  give  the 
principles  and  facts  of  relation  as  you  go  along 
as  a  part  to  practical  exercise.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  many  children  do  these  things  1^'ithout 
any  instruction,  only  the  parents  do  not  get 


GEOMETRY  297 

the  full  value  out  of  what  the  child  does  natu- 
rally and  without  any  urging  whatever. 

In  doing  all  this  as  with  the  other  subjects 
we  have  talked  about  you  will  always  give 
them  their  ijroper  names.  You  will  talk 
about  the  diameter  as  diameter.  You  will 
talk  about  plane  surfaces  and  solids  just  as 
they  do  in  any  high  school  geometry  class. 
There  is  not  the  slightest  reason  why  you 
should  not  and  there  are  all  the  reasons  possi- 
ble why  you  should.  While  you  are  doing 
this  you  can  take  along  many  principles  of 
physics  like  weight  and  volume  and  power  of 
resistance  but  all  this  is  incidental  to  the  busi- 
ness of  teaching  measurements. 

There  are  so  many  ways  of  utilizing  these 
things  that  it  is  hard  to  state  where  you  shall 
begin.  We  used  to  measure  the  circumfer- 
ence of  trees  or  of  plates  or  of  wheels  and  the 
like.  We  used  to  draw  all  kinds  of  figures 
and  then  see  how  many  things,  geometrical 
facts,  about  them  we  could  tell,  like  identifying 
the  lands  of  angles,  the  names  of  the  figures, 
and  the  like.  In  doing  all  this  we  taught  the 
simple  elements  of  arithmetic  and  sometimes 
some  of  the  more  involved  processes. 

In  this  sort  of  study  we  also  taught  many 
of  the  simpler  propositions  both  of  geometry 


298  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

and  algebra.  My  own  opinion  is  that  mathe- 
matical study  may  very  properly  begin  "with 
algebra  because  the  use  of  letters  is  so  much 
more  simple  and  so  much  more  interesting . 
The  use  of  such  expressions  as  "the  sum  of  two 
numbers,"  "the  difference  of  two  numbers," 
the  "difference  of  their  squares,"  their  "cubes" 
and  many  such  terms  are  easily  comprehended 
while  the  use  of  terms  as  factors  and  factoring 
generally  is  much  more  easily  comprehended 
with  letters  than  with  figures.  In  a  word, 
you  are  dealing  with  the  terminology  of  math- 
ematical study  which  is  only  saying  that  you 
are  extending  the  child's  knowledge  of  Eng- 
lish, a  highly  specialized  branch,  to  be  sure,  but 
nevertheless  a  branch  of  English  which  needs 
to  be  mastered  along  with  the  rest  of  the  dia- 
lect of  knowledge. 

It  has  not  been  my  experience  that  children 
thus  early  inducted  into  this  terminology  have 
any  difficulty  with  such  terms  as  tangent,  arc, 
perpendicular  and  the  like.  Centre  and  ra- 
dius, area  and  volume,  all  in  their  proper  sig- 
nificance never  presented  any  special  diffi- 
culty and  on  the  contrary  presented  many  in- 
teresting psychological  evidences  that  there  is 
a  natural  affiliation  of  the  himian  mind  with 
these  things  if  we  ever  find  out  how  to  express 
it.     I  believe  that  much,  if  not  most,  of  the 


GEOMETRY  299 

trouble  with  the  entire  subject  of  mathe- 
matics is  due  to  the  fact  that  most  of  the 
mathematicians  know  nothing  about  the  Eng- 
lish language.  I  judge  this,  of  course,  by 
the  language  which  I  find  in  the  books  on 
mathematics  but  more  especially,  by  the  use 
of  the  tongue  they  make  when  they  propound 
what  they  call  "original"  problems.  They  are 
original  in  many  more  senses  than  intended, 
and  mostly  so  in  the  monstrous  misuse  of  the 
mother  tongue.  If  there  is  anything  calcu- 
lated to  disgust  or  harass  a  young  student 
more  than  these  things,  I  cannot  imagine  what 
it  would  be. 

Take  most  of  the  definitions  which  you 
will  find  at  the  beginning  of  any  text  book 
in  geometry  like,  straight  line,  curved  line, 
broken  line,  plane  surface,  curved  surface, 
rectilinear  figure,  curvilinear  figure,  and  the 
like.  I  have  never  experienced  the  slightest 
difficulty  in  teaching  these  to  little  children 
with  blocks  and  having  them  draw  on  com- 
mand the  kind  of  figure  required.  Indeed,  it 
was  in  connection  witli  circles  tliat  I  took  a 
globe  and  taught  all  I  know  about  latitude 
and  longitude  and  many  other  things  inciden- 
tally. Of  course,  the  main  interest  is  not 
mathematical,  except  in  that  it  teaches  exact- 
ness and  measurements  and  calls  for  reason- 


300  TEACHING  IN  THE   HOME 

lug  and  demands  proof.  Tliese  are  much 
more  important  than  all  the  rest  combined. 
But  even  here  it  must  be  remembered  that  the 
reasoning  is  always  necessary  reasoning.  In 
this  it  differs  so  thoroughly  from  the  method 
employed  in  most  of  the  other  sciences  that 
almost  any  child  will  feel  the  difference,  unless 
the  method  of  approach  is  some  such  an  one  as 
I  am  now  describing. 

The  approach  to  this  subject  is  probably 
made  easier  and  more  pleasant  by  the  fact  that 
the  children  are  using  their  hands  as  well  as 
their  heads.  Handling  a  sphere  is  a  very  dif- 
ferent thing  from  talking  about  one.  So,  too, 
handling  iiyramids,  cvhes,  and  eijlinders,  tells 
more  about  them  in  three  minutes  than  three 
hours  of  talking  about  them,  because  of  the 
difficulties  of  exact  definition,  suited  to  the 
mind  of  a  child.  Of  course,  it  can  be  done. 
But  to  take  a  pyramid  and  measure  all  its 
sides,  and  find  out  all  that  can  be  told  about  it 
in  a  simple  way,  is  great  training  in  exactness, 
both  of  practice  and  thinking.  Often  if  you 
will  let  several  children  do  this  at  the  same 
time  and  then  let  them  compare  their  results, 
you  will  develop  a  first  class  debating  society. 

When  we  struck  a  term  like  equilateral,  or 
quadrilateral,  I  always  used  to  rest  the  chil- 
dren by  making  the  subject  one  of  linguistic 


GEOMETRY  SOI 

interest  because  those  words  lend  themselves 
to  a  good  deal  of*  interesting  discourse.  It 
used  to  be  a  source  of  great  amusement  to  me 
to  hear  the  children  repeat  these  discourses 
with  my  own  intonations  and  gestures  to  other 
and  younger  children.  But  I  see  no  reason 
why  tliis  is  not  as  good  a  process  of  training 
or  how  it  differs  in  effectiveness,  as  indeed  it 
did  not,  in  my  household,  from  letting  the 
children  experiment  with  a  piece  of  dough  in 
baking,  or  a  piece  of  cloth  in  making  the  dress 
of  a  doll !  In  both  cases  we  were  playing  with 
different  kinds  of  knowledge.  The  only  dif- 
ference was,  the  kind  I  played  with,  is  neces- 
sary to  get  into  college  and  has  sanction  as 
knowledge  worth  an  academic  degree,  while 
the  other  has  as  yet  no  such  sanction.  They 
still  think  stones  are  better  than  bread  at  the 
universities ! 

As  I  write  these  lines  I  can  look  about  me 
and  hardly  see  an  object  which  was  not  used 
in  this  sort  of  study.  The  floors,  the  walls, 
the  pictures,  the  windows,  the  desks  and  this 
very  typewriter,  were  all  utilized  in  this  par- 
ticular branch  of  study.  We  drew  all  sorts 
of  figures  and  we  noticed  all  the  various 
shapes,  which  were  to  be  found  in  the  room 
and  we  accustomed  ourselves  to  noting  differ- 
ences of  shape  and  six,e  and  area,  and,  in  fact, 


802  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

all  the  things  which  made  use  of  our  geometri- 
cal knowledge  and  where  the  processes  were 
not  too  complicated,  we  worked  them  out.  I 
often  had  measurements  of  window  screens 
made,  or  of  pipe,  or  of  the  width  and  length  of 
stairs,  or  of  rugs,  and  all  sorts  of  objects  which 
gave,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  observe, 
quite  as  accurate  results  as  one  gets  from  most 
children  in  the  earlier  years  of  the  high  school. 
It  took  longer  of  course,  and  there  was  the 
natural  clumsiness  and  lack  of  manual  dexter- 
ity and  skill,  but  the  final  results  were  not 
more  inaccurate  than  those  wliich  I  have  seen 
given  by  high  school  children.  In  fact  exact 
measurement  is  not  a  common  thing.  Ask 
any  builder  or  ask  yourself  when  you  have 
had  occasion  to  make  measurements! 

This  form  of  mathematical  study  with  little 
children  lends  itself  most  effectively  for  intel- 
ligent play.  Building  with  card  board  or 
with  stiff  paper  or  with  blocks  or  even  with 
boards,  and  the  drawing  of  plans  and  working 
in  accord  w-ith  the  plans,  is  valuable  manual 
training  and  experience  and  this  is  the  best 
way  to  get  it.  What  I  have  seen  of  man- 
ual training  has  not,  except  in  its  more  ad- 
vanced stages,  been  higher  in  educational 
quality,  though  naturally  more  exact  in 
achievement,  than  wliat  I  have  seen  done  by 


GEOMETRY  303 

little  children  in  this  respect,  and  it  is  my  opin- 
ion, that  with  such  training  a  ten-year-old 
child  can  do  in  a  single  year  all  the  arithmetic 
of  the  first  eight  grades  and  where  there  is  any 
special  aptitude  in  this  direction  even  more. 
It  is  to  me  proof  j^ositive  of  the  utter  Morth- 
lessness  of  most  of  the  mathematics  of  the 
grades,  beyond  mere  memoriter  work  and  dis- 
cipline and  sj^eed  in  writing  or  reciting. 

Hours  and  hours  of  happy  pleasant  occupa- 
tion may  be  secured  in  this  way  and  all  sorts 
of  material  may  be  utihzed.  As  I  recall 
it  now,  in  our  own  household,  we  utilized 
Clips  and  saucers,  measured  and  drew  broken 
pieces,  tin  cans,  the  discarded  boxes  in  the 
kitchen  of  wood  and  of  tin  or  card  board,  and 
caused  the  children  to  make  all  sorts  of  articles 
some  of  which  remain  to  this  day.  The  habit 
of  tvorking  after  a  plan  or  model  we  found  a 
most  useful  and  fruitful  method  of  working. 
And  in  connection  with  these  things,  let  me 
say,  there  is  no  possible  use  in  getting  valu- 
able and  costly  materials  for  this  sort  of  thing. 
Your  own  home  has  all  that  you  need  and  it 
only  calls  for  a  little  reflection  on  your  part  to 
provide  all  the  materials  you  need.  Here, 
too,  you  can  use  all  the  kindergarten  materials 
if  you  care  to  do  it  that  way.  My  own  experi- 
ence has  been  that  children  who  have  been 


304  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

taught  how  serious  tasks  are  performed,  do 
not  wish  to  think  they  are  "playing"  at  their 
work,  but  wish  to  see  something  accomplished 
which  represents  real  achievement  and  gets 
real  praise  and  approval.  In  our  own  home 
it  led  to  the  cultivation  of  the  habit  of  inven- 
tion. My  own  children  will  never  forget  the 
wagons  and  other  vehicles  they  themselves 
built  and  with  which  they  spent  hours  while 
the  most  costly  and  handsome  things  wliich 
had  been  purchased,  lay  about  unused. 

In  mathematical  study  of  this  kind  and  its 
instruction,  one  fact  should  be  borne  in  mind. 
It  is  here  that  the  superior  maturity  of  the 
parent  or  teacher  counts  for  most  and  where 
the  form  of  devising  the  problem  or  arrang- 
ing the  work  has  its  best  illustration.  But 
everything  should  be  concrete.  Abstractions 
are  not  of  a  great  deal  of  use  even  to  mature 
people,  and  even  less  to  children.  You  can 
prove  this  any  time  by  telling  a  child  about 
some  geometrical  figure  and  noticing  its  blank 
inability  to  comprehend  what  you  want,  and 
then  setting  the  same  child  to  work  out  the 
same  problem  with  tools  of  some  kind  or  mate- 
rials with  which  it  can  be  given  the  opportu- 
nity of  measuring  and  comparing  its  own  work 
with  the  model  which  it  is  set  to  follow. 

Another  feature  of  it  which  impressed  me 


GEOMETRY  305 

was  that  it  developed  the  habit  of  pausing  at 
stated  intervals  and  checking  up  results  from 
time  to  time.  Most  mathematical  study  being 
based  on  necessary  reasoning  admits  of  just 
this,  hence  you  can  trace  errors  or  you  can  set 
the  child  to  go  over  its  own  work  either  for- 
ward or  backward  and  find  out  its  own  errors. 
This  is  a  very  educative  process  because  it 
stimulates  scrutiny  and  comparison  and  meas- 
iirements  and  leads  to  care  and  2:)recision  as 
few  other  things  can  or  do.  In  many  forms 
of  study  this  is  not  possible.  But  because 
mathematics  for  the  most  part  is  based  on 
necessary  reasoning,  the  various  stages  can  be 
marked  off  with  exactness  and  the  error  abso- 
lutely located.  This  can  be  worked  out  in  all 
sorts  of  ways.  And  most  children  will  have 
genuine  and  justifiable  satisfaction  in  com- 
paring the  substantial  accuracy  of  some  later 
work  with  the  clumsiness  and  inaccuracy  of 
some  earlier  performance.  But,  in  any  case, 
there  is  always  activity  with  the  hands  as  well 
as  the  mind  and  this  helps  in  the  dual  develop- 
ment in  connection  with  matters  of  real  educa- 
tive utility. 

A  necessary  part  of  mathematical  study  is 
that  of  recording  accurately  what  has  been 
tcorked  out.  Experience  seems  to  show  that 
about  so  much  practice  is  needful  for  each  in- 


SOG  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

dividual  child,  before  it  can  write  exactly  what 
it  means  to  write  and  what  it  knows  absolutely. 
Most  children  can  do  very  much  better  in  an 
oral  examination  than  in  a  written  one,  and 
the  reason  for  this  is  perfectly  plain.  When 
it  comes  to  writing  accurately,  this  in  itself  is 
a  land  of  art.  It  is  so  much  an  art  that  it  is 
not  infrequently  true,  that  inferior  students 
can  write  better  papers  than  students  who  have 
greater  actual  knowledge  of  a  given  subject. 
It  is  in  the  mathematical  work  that  this  must 
be  mastered  though  it  comes  not  less  in  the 
work  of  languages,  but  while  there  it  fre- 
quently explains  itself,  an  error  in  mathemat- 
ics is  fatal  to  the  whole  subsequent  process. 
For  this  reason  great  accuracy  should  he  in- 
sisted upon  in  writing,  copying  and  drawing 
and  frequent  repetition  should  be  insisted  upon 
though  it  may  be  done  in  a  manner  which  will 
not  be  too  taxing  to  the  little  minds.  But 
nothing  short  of  absolute  correctness  should 
be  insisted  upon  since  this  is  all  there  is  to  the 
study  of  mathematics.  A  line  is  exactly  six 
inches  long  or  it  is  not.  It  is  ascertainable 
whether  it  is  or  it  is  not.  Never  leave  such  a 
matter  in  doubt.  In  fact,  leave  nothing  in 
doubt,  about  which  final  knowledge  can  be 
obtained,  though  this  rule  has  more  force  in 


GEOMETRY  307 

mathematics  than  anywhere  else  because  as 
stated  that  is  all  there  is  to  it. 

It  is  here,  too,  that  the  general  value 
of  mathematical  studies  can  be  determined. 
Two  and  two  are  four,  and  they  are  no  more 
to  a  sage  who  has  lived  seventy  years,  than 
they  are  to  a  child  of  four  years.  The  sage 
knows  no  more  about  it  than  the  four-year-old, 
because  that  is  all  there  is  to  know  and  can  be 
verified  by  the  one  as  well  as  by  the  other. 
Nothing  that  the  sage  has  experienced  in  life, 
no  wider  contact  with  men  and  events,  no  in- 
sight into  the  human  mind  or  the  human  heart, 
can  add  one  jot  or  tittle  to  that  fact.  It  is 
just  so  with  the  nmltiphcation  tables.  They 
are  not  matters  of  reasoning  or  experience  or 
depth  of  feeling  or  point  of  view.  They  are 
just  mechanical  facts  and  hence  their  only 
value  is  that  they  are  right. 

It  is  one  of  the  unanswerable  proofs  of  my 
position  about  most  of  the  mathematics,  I 
mean,  of  course,  the  pure  mathematics,  that 
they  are  steadily  being  reduced  to  machine  ac- 
tion. No  bank  any  longer  relies  upon  the 
clerks  to  add  up  accurately,  long  columns  of 
figures,  or  even  performing  certain  kinds  of 
other  figuring  transactions,  because  they  liave 
machinery  which  can  do  it  more  rapidly  and 


SOS  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

do  it  more  accurately.  A  machine  never  gets 
tired  doing  the  same  thing.  A  human  being 
does.  The  human  mind  craves  new  applica- 
tions of  principles,  and  fresh  insight  and 
fresh  knowledge  concerning  all  that  comes  to 
it.  A  machine  has  no  such  necessities  and  be- 
cause mathematics  has  no  such  capabilities  or 
natural  possibilities,  most  arithmetical  trans- 
actions can  he  done  by  machines  which  are 
more  and  more  coining  into  general  use  he- 
cause  they  are  more  trustivorthy  than  the  hu- 
man mind,  susceptible  as  the  latter  is  to  moods, 
weariness  and  error.  Take  good  note  of  this, 
when  )'0u  are  urged  to  make  your  child  a  good 
arithmetician  and  find  his  progi'css  impeded 
because  he  refuses  the  stupidities  which  are 
supposed  to  make  for  discipline! 

But,  by  these  same  tokens,  when  you  do 
have  anything  to  do  with  them  theij  must  he 
accurate  or  they  are  nothing.  Hence  insist 
on  precision.  See  that  results  are  ecvactly 
right,  not  "about  right"  or  "nearly  right"  and 
don't  allow  yourself  to  use  such  terms  in  con- 
nection with  mathematical  work.  They  are 
right  or  they  are  tcrong  and  that  is  all  there  is 
to  say  about  them.  That  is  the  sum  of  their 
intellectual  content.  Hence  you  must  get 
that  or  you  get  nothing.  In  fact,  you  get 
worse  than  nothing.     You  get  habits  of  inac- 


GEOMETRY  309 

curacy  which  are  damaging  beyond  calcula- 
tion. I  believe  the  study  of  arithmetic  in  the 
schools,  as  often  carried  on,  is  responsible  for 
a  vast  amount  of  the  carelessness  and  heed- 
lessness of  many  people.  They  could  not  get 
the  work  absolutely  right.  So  they  took 
^'something  just  as  good,"  meaning  thereby 
"nearly  rigid"  or  "about  right  J" 

In  many  communities  this  is  being  recog- 
nized and  changes  are  taking  place,  which 
show  a  recognition  of  the  valuelessness  of  what 
I  have  been  describing,  but  there  are  many 
communities  where  these  things  are  insisted 
upon,  as  the  condition  of  higher  and  advanced 
study.  You  will  find  it  far  better  to  do  all 
this  work  at  home,  than  to  trust  it  to  the 
school,  where  almost  perforce  it  has  to  be 
badly  done,  and  done  under  conditions  which 
can  hardly  fail  to  secure  irritation  and  tribu- 
lation, both  for  the  teacher  and  the  pupil. 

While  you  are  dealing  with  the  matter  of 
measurements  you  may  take  the  occasion  also 
to  teach  the  metric  system  which  is  more  and 
more  coming  into  general  use,  and  which  the 
child  will  have  to  have  later  on  in  any  case. 
It  is  simplicity  itself  and  can  just  as  well  be 
taught  here  as  anpvhcre.  Here  again  you 
can  use  your  xcord  studies  in  connection  with 
it,  which  will  make  it  interesting  as  you  go 


310  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

along,  but  in  any  case,  try  it  out  and  see  what 
comes  of  it.  It  will  be  one  thing  more  learned 
in  this  direction  and  will  aid  in  your  general 
plan  of  fertilization.  At  the  same  time  you 
can  teach  the  elements  of  j)erccntage,  and  the 
decimal  system,  because  all  these  run  on  all 
fours  together.  In  fact  as  you  take  up  the 
words  of  any  given  science  and  analyze  them 
you  will  be  preparing  for  the  teaching  of  the 
science  itself  because  you  will  be  giving  defini- 
tions and  furnishing  illustrations  which  will 
themselves  take  you  a  considerable  way  on  the 
road  to  what  you  wish  to  achieve. 

If  all  this  seems  very  advanced  to  you  and 
almost  impossible,  just  try  it  out.  Of  course, 
you  will  clarify  your  own  ideas  so  that  you 
know  exactly  what  you  are  talking  about  and 
then  the  matter  will  be  easy  enough.  Just 
keep  before  you  constantly  that  a  clear  idea 
can  he  comprehended  by  a  child,  no  matter 
what  the  subject  matter  happens  to  be  and  do 
not  underestimate  this  capacity.  You  will  in 
general  find  that  the  real  limitations  are  not 
those  of  the  child,  but  your  inability  to  tell 
clearly  what  you  know  perfectly. 

As  you  glance  through  your  aritlimetic  se- 
lect the  applied  forms  of  it,  and  tiy  them  from 
time  to  time,  always  relating  them  to  some- 
thing specific  and  that  has  some  inmiediate  in- 


GEOMETRY  811 

terest  to  the  child  itself.  The  ways  will  sug- 
gest themselves  to  you  as  you  go  on  and  you 
will  set  forth  on  many  a  tour  of  exploration 
and  come  home  laden  with  many  things  which 
you  did  not  expect  to  find  out  when  j^ou  set 
out.  Whenever  the  child  raises  some  ques- 
tion about  which  you  are  not  clear  yourself 
work  it  out  with  the  child  and  let  him  see  the 
process  by  which  you  arrive  at  your  own  con- 
clusions. The  decimal  system,  to  which  I 
have  just  referred  in  its  applied  forms,  has 
many  such  examples  of  practical  application. 
The  use  of  money  and  interest  and  the  like, 
can  easily  be  shown  in  intelligible  form  and  the 
principles  very  readily  inculcated.  And  there 
are  many  others. 

If  all  this  seems  rather  like  a  large  contract, 
just  remember  how  before  the  era  of  text 
books  and  in  a  comparatively  recent  period, 
such  operations  had  to  be  performed  by  rela- 
tively illiterate  people  as  indeed  they  still  are. 
Your  child  with  the  modern  resources  of 
knowledge,  can  do  to-day  what  these  people 
did  years  ago,  being  acquainted  only  with  the 
crudest  possible  ways  of  proceeding.  Just 
study  the  work  of  a  cash  register  and  let  that 
teach  you.  Notice  sometime  some  of  the 
more  highly  developed  balances  of  your 
butcher  in  which  not  only  the  weight  is  given 


S12  TEACHING  IX  THE  HOME 

l)ut  the  price  is  worked  out  on  the  tables,  call- 
ing for  almost  no  calculation.  In  fact  notice 
all  such  machines  wherever  you  come  across 
them,  in  fact,  every  device  for  measurement  or 
comjmtation.  A  little  attention  to  the  ma- 
chine will  show  how  simple  it  is,  concretely 
studied.  But  never  try  to  do  these  things  in 
the  abstract.  I  have  elsewhere  spoken  of  the 
habit  of  weighing  things  purchased  at  the 
grocer's  or  the  butcher's.  Plan  to  do  the 
same  thing  wath  dry  goods  which  can  be  meas- 
ured also,  all  of  which  will  teach  many  other 
things  besides  the  mathematics  involved.  It  is 
by  these  constant  demands,  here  a  little,  there 
a  little,  line  upon  line,  and  precept  upon  pre- 
cept, that  principles  are  established. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

ETHICS 

It  Is  wlien  we  come  to  the  field  of  ethics 
that  we  appreciate  the  immense  value  of  the 
course  which  we  have  heen  pursuing.  Noth- 
ing seems  so  easy  as  the  regulation  of  conduct. 
Nothing  actually  proves  so  difficult.  Broadly 
speaking  there  are  tivo  kinds  of  people  in  the 
world:  those  who  obey  some  outward  authority 
and  those  who  are  governed  by  their  inward 
light  and  convictions.  To  a  certain  degree 
we  are  all  governed  by  what  is  outside  of  us, 
because  manners,  customs,  place  of  residence, 
occupation  and  the  like,  all  begin  to  exercise 
an  iron  sway  over  us  from  the  moment  we  are 
born.  The  very  food  we  eat  has  its  part  in 
making  us  what  we  are.  And  to  many  of 
these  things  we  must  conform,  because  no  man 
liveth  to  himself  in  this  world  any  longer. 
There  used  to  be  a  time  when,  if  a  group  of 
people  did  not  like  the  place  where  they  were 
they  could  go  off  to  some  uninhabited  pLice, 
and  start  a  new  civilization  of  their  own.  But 
that  period  is  now  over.     You  may  change 

313 


814  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

jurisdictions  if  you  please,  but  wherever  you 
go,  somebody  has  already  set  up  a  particular 
code  to  which  in  part,  at  least,  you  must  con- 
form. 

But  even  when  we  have  a  highly  developed 
state  of  civilization  the  question  does  not  be- 
come easier.  In  fact,  it  tends  to  become  more 
difficult  because  great  masses  of  people, 
swayed  by  all  sorts  of  influences,  call  for 
decisions  which  involve  the  most  careful  bal- 
ancing of  facts,  motives,  conditions  and  ante- 
cedents and  the  like,  which  make  it  often  a 
very  difficult  matter  to  know  just  what  to  do, 
even  when  there  is  an  unflinching  disposition 
to  do  right.  We  have  before  us  at  the  pres- 
ent moment  a  striking  illustration  of  this  con- 
dition. Just  see  what  different  interpreta- 
tions equally  upright  people  put  upon  the 
various  facts  of  the  war!  Read  the  docu- 
ments which  the  authorized  spokesmen  have 
offered  to  us  for  the  justification  of  their 
course,  and  if  you  have  any  reason  left,  you 
will  at  once  become  aware  how  hard  the  pres- 
sure is,  in  the  modern  world,  to  regulate  con- 
duct and  opinions. 

You  will  also  see,  if  you  examine  this  mat- 
ter, that  the  meaning  of  words  plays  a  huge 
part  in  these  opinions.  You  will  see  states- 
men, who  ought  to  know  better,  using  the  same 


ETHICS  S15 

word  in  different  senses — a  very  common  fal- 
lacy of  logic.  You  will  see  them  twisting  per- 
fectly clear  matters  into  all  sorts  of  shapes, 
in  order  to  make  a  point  where  none  exists. 
You  will  see  them  confusing  matters,  some- 
times very  obviously,  but  just  as  often  without 
intention,  because  they  are  juggling  with  the 
meaning  of  words  and  are  either  enlarging 
or  contracting  the  content  of  a  particular  word 
or  phrase.  It  is  in  matters  of  this  kind,  that 
exact  and  careful  English  proves  its  value  and 
where  the  uses  of  word-study  and  analysis  ap- 
pear to  best  advantage.  But  you  will  see 
more.  You  will  see  how  the  desire  to  make  a 
particular  point  is  very  obviously  distorting 
the  facts. 

Now  all  tliis,  which  is  specially  clear  in  war 
time,  is  at  such  times  only  an  exaggerated 
presentation  of  what  most  people  do  habitu- 
ally. Careful  use  of  language  and  knowl- 
edge of  language  tends  to  prevent  the  worst 
forms  of  this  in  ordinary  times.  Exact  scien- 
tific knowledge  gives  an  effective  weapon  for 
the  checking  of  those  who  would  use  such 
methods  upon  matters  which  affect  us. 
Hence  the  great  value  of  these.  But  back  of 
this  there  is  always  the  moral  question  itself 
and  the  conception  of  morals,  and  back  even 
of  that  a  certain  ingrained  ethical  sense  which 


316  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

is,  I  suppose,  a  union  of  habits  and  the  culture 
of  ethical  thinking.  In  any  event  nothing 
seems  so  necessary  to  the  world  at  this  mo- 
ment as  enlightened  moral  instruction. 

This  instruction  should  begin  very  early  in 
youth  and  I  am  urging  that  it  be  done  in  the 
formal  terms,  for  the  reason  that  I  have  pre- 
viously urged,  namely,  that  by  this  means  the 
child  will  have  earlier  access  to  the  hterature 
and  discussions  of  moral  questions,  and  issues 
will  be  less  subject  to  prejudices  and  passions 
and  will  have  a  better  chance  to  lead  an  or- 
derly, happy  and  useful  life  and  one  that  is 
governed  by  the  highest  motives.  JNIany  peo- 
ple do  the  best  they  know  how  to  do  and  this 
is  nothing  but  the  simple  truth.  But  their 
"best"  is  so  crude  and  damaged  an  affair,  that 
we  not  infrequently  wish  some  persons  were 
more  positively  bad,  that  their  reformation 
might  seem  to  them  the  more  necessaiy. 
There  is  nothing  in  this  world  so  difficult  to 
deal  with  as  a  human  being  who  thinks  he  is 
right  and  has  ncithe?'  the  knowledge  nor  the 
training  to  he  susceptible  to  the  agencies  by 
which  he  can  be  shown  to  be  wrong.  Such 
people  are  the  worst  enemies  of  moral  gi'owth 
and  progress  in  the  world.  Positive  wrongs 
show  their  character  at  once  and  can  be 
branded  as  such.     But  the  actions  which  have 


ETHICS  S17 

the  dubious  shading,  whicli  make  it  hard  to 
condemn,  and  harder  to  approve,  and  which 
make  a  perfectly  fair  person  unable  to  decide 
just  which  is  predominant,  present  the  great 
difficulties.  It  is  just  so  with  studies.  A 
positive  and  palpable  error  usually  leads  to 
its  own  correction.  It  is  the  doubtful  things 
that  complicate  studies.  They  also  present  the 
main  complications  of  life. 

Under  this  intensive  regimen  which  I  have 
been  advocating  I  have  many  times  advised 
exactness  as  to  detail  and  urged  that  you  take 
any  amount  of  time  and  patience  to  get  exact- 
ness. Nothing  is  lost  by  this.  On  the  con- 
trary, when  the  habit  has  been  formed,  prog- 
ress is  very  rapid.  Now  ethical  instruction 
which  is  to  be  effective  has  to  be  preceded  by 
something  which  is  more  or  less  exact  at  a 
time  when  there  is  no  judgment,  no  independ- 
ent reasoning  power,  and  no  ability  to  discrim- 
inate. That  exact  thing  is  a  thing  much  de- 
spised in  our  day  but  one  to  which  I  beheve 
the  whole  world  will  have  to  come  back  sooner 
or  later.     It  is  the  imnciple  of  aidliority. 

By  this  I  mean  that  there  must  be  a  period 
of  absolute  and  unquestioning  obedience. 
Why  this  should  excite  opposition  as  it  so  often 
does,  is  very  strange  to  me.  We  exact  abso- 
lute obedience  in  many  things.     We  do  not 


318  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

let  children  jump  into  rivers,  or  eat  poisons, 
or  meddle  with  dangerous  machinery.  We 
demand  and  get  as  absolute  obedience  as  it  is 
possible  for  us  to  get.  Nobody  thinks  he  is 
being  bullied  when  he  sees  a  red  lamp  in  the 
road  at  night!  Why?  Because  he  knows 
that  is  the  recognized  method  of  indicating 
danger.  Nobody  but  a  fool  would  drive  on 
over  that  lamp  without  inquiring  why  it  was 
there!  In  a  similar  way  w^e  have  certain  ex- 
periences and  certain  knowledge  about  which 
there  is  no  doubt  whatever.  There  are  certain 
practices,  the  results  of  which  we  know  as 
absolutely  as  we  know  that  the  sun  shines. 
We  do  not  hesitate  to  make  absolutely  final 
rules  about  them. 

Now  I  believe  in  tliis  absolute  obedience.  I 
believe  in  getting  it  by  the  best  means  pos- 
sible, but  I  believe  an  irretrievable  damage  has 
been  done  to  any  child  that  has  not  learned  it. 
Of  course,  tlie  chief  use  of  your  maturity  and 
skill  is  to  avoid  needless  conflicts,  and  this  is 
the  main  use  of  your  superior  intelligence  and 
knowledge,  namely,  to  prevent  conflicts  from 
arising.  But  if  the  conflict  does  arise  there  is 
only  one  thing  that  must  happen: you  must  rein 
and  get  your  way  absolutely  till  a  more  ex- 
cellent way  has  been  shown.     This  may  re- 


ETHICS  319 

quire  physical  force,  in  fact,  often  does.  But 
whether  it  does  or  not,  there  are  two  kinds  of 
persons  who  never  amount  to  anything  in  this 
world:  the  people  who  cannot  do  exactly  as 
they  are  told  and  the  people  tvho  cannot  do 
anything  else.  Obedience,  it  has  been  said, 
is  the  organ  of  spiritual  knowledge.  It  is  the 
organ  of  every  kind  of  knowledge. 

Now  this  is  what  I  mean  by  the  principle  of 
authority.  It  lies  at  the  basis  of  rational  ac- 
tion. It  takes  for  granted  that  experience, 
age,  wider  knowledge,  and  special  training, 
are  worthy  of  regard  and  until  they  are 
matched  by  something  superior  are  to  be  re- 
garded absolutely.  It  is  not  necessary  for  a 
father  to  he  right  to  insist  that  his  xvill  shall  he 
obeyed.  All  the  presumptions  are  in  his  favor 
in  any  case,  assuming  that  he  is  a  good  man. 
The  child  is  right  in  supposing  that  he  is  right 
and  in  standing  on  his  word  absolutely  with- 
out any  qualifications  whatever.  We  fathers 
know  that  we  are  not  always  right,  perhaps 
not  usually  right.  But  tee  also  knorv  that  in 
ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred  the  child  is 
safer  in  following  our  error  than  his  own. 
There  is  a  clioice  even  in  mistakes.  You 
should  train  the  child  to  know  and  understand 
this  principle  as  thoroughly  as  it  is  possible  to 


320  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

teach  it.  Because  upon  the  recognition  of  its 
force,  will  depend  much  of  its  happiness  and 
effectiveness. 

Having  made  this  clear  you  should  begin 
your  study  with  the  child  by  showing  its  j)er- 
sonal  relations.  You  do  this  right  along 
though  not  usually  formally.  You  may  well 
begin  by  asking  what  things  pertain  to  the 
child  alone.  What  things  are  personal  and 
individual,  how  it  is  separated  or  different  from 
every  other  creature  in  the  world.  What  does 
this  involve  as  to  itself?  What  does  it  involve 
as  to  others?  "Wliat  does  it  mean  as  to  be- 
havior? How  does  this  affect  ideals,  aims  and 
purposes?  Take  that  word  self  and  work  in 
through  its  various  ramifications  and  see  what 
you  get  out  of  it.  Contrast  selfhood  and  self- 
ishness,  make  the  various  compounds  of  the 
word  like  self -consciousness,  self-dependence, 
self-nurture,  self-culture,  self-sacrifice  and 
turn  over  these  various  contrasts  of  meaning 
and  see  what  they  will  lead  to.  You  will  have 
little  difficulty  in  finding  material  here  for  all 
the  time  you  wish  to  put  into  it. 

Take  up  the  words  which  have  to  do  with  the 
personal  moral  life.  Take  such  a  word  as  good 
and  turn  it  over  and  over,  and  see  what  comes 
of  that.  What  is  the  difference  between  a 
good  man  and  a  good  knife?    What  is  the  dif- 


ETHICS  321 

ference  in  meaning,  when  we  say  a  good  horse 
and  a  good  book?  You  will  readily  see  that 
here  you  are  dealing  with  functions  and  uses 
and  ideals  and  it  is  your  business  to  separate 
them  and  accustom  the  child  to  think  along 
these  lines.  In  a  similar  way  you  may  take  the 
word  had.  A  had  man  and  a  had  error  may 
be  compared  and  various  other  bad  things.  Go 
into  these  distinctions  because  they  lie  at  the 
base  of  ethical  thought.  You  can  readily  make 
applications  of  these  words  which  will  lead  to 
the  very  heart  of  ethical  questions.  Ask 
whether  a  good  ball-player  can  also  be  a  had 
man?  Or  whether  a  had  citizen  can  be  a  good 
father? 

In  a  similar  way  you  will  early  begin  to 
make  clear  the  distinction  between  natural  evil 
and  moral  evil.  What  for  example  is  the  dif- 
ference between  jmin  suffered  as  a  consequence 
of  putting  the  finger  in  the  fire  and  that  suf- 
fered when  the  hand  is  slapped  for  disobedi- 
ence? How  does  the  result  differ  when  a  fall 
from  a  roof  breaks  a  man's  neck  and  kills  him 
or  an  electric  wire  kills  him,  and  the  law  which 
takes  his  life  by  electrocution?  The  kinds  of 
evil  in  the  world  should  be  made  the  subject 
of  a  good  deal  of  discussion  and  instruction. 
The  same  thing  applies  to  all  moral  words,  like 
"wrong,  for  example.     How  does  a  tL-rong  an- 


322  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

swer  to  a  question  differ  from  a  wrong  act? 
You  will  be  surprised  how  soon  these  distinc- 
tions may  be  made  and  how  important  they  are 
in  regulating  behavior  and  simplifying  the 
questions  of  moral  training. 

No  question  ever  staggered  me  so  much  as 
when  my  own  children  first  asked  me  what  sin 
was!  I  pondered  long  before  answering  that 
question  because  I  did  not  want  them  to  con- 
fuse sin  and  sins.  Nor  did  I  wish  them  to 
think  of  character  merely  as  a  series  of  acts. 
Nor  did  I  wish  them  to  think  of  goodness  as 
a  group  of  prohihitions.  After  a  good  deal  of 
reflection  I  evolved  this  and  I  give  it  to  you 
because  it  practically  settled  the  question  of 
moral  training  in  our  household  forever. 
"Sin  is  the  choice  of  something  lower  when 
something  higher  is  possihlcf'  That  lifted  the 
subject  entirely  out  of  the  region  of  specific 
acts.  It  made  no  difference  whether  the  par- 
ticular thing  was  worthy  or  unworthy.  If 
something  higher  and  better  was  possible,  there 
was  sin.  I  think  that  simple  definition,  crude 
as  it  seems,  simplified  every  moral  problem 
which  the  children  ever  faced.  It  made  pro- 
hibitions practically  needless,  and  caused  much 
reflection  at  a  time  when  reflection  is  usually 
wanting.  I  think  it  induced  the  habit  of  re- 
flection as  such  a  very  desirable  result  apart 


ETHICS  323 

from  its  moral  significance.  Personally  I 
think  this  kind  of  discussion  has  educational 
uses  beyond  all  other  mental  exercises,  because 
it  almost  always  deals  with  personal  applica- 
tions and  involves  the  will. 

Personal  rights  and  personal  duties  came 
to  figure  largely,  because  of  these  questions 
and  answers.  It  led  to  some  very  amusing  sit- 
uations of  which  the  following  is  an  example. 
I  had  been  teaching  something  about  the  right 
of  immunity  on  the  part  of  others  from  pain, 
because  of  matters  which  were  strictly  of  our 
own  choosing  and  interest.  And  I  had  been 
saying,  that  if  one  of  the  children  tumbled 
over  and  bumped  its  nose  and  suffered  pain 
on  that  account,  it  was  hardly  just  that  the 
whole  household  should  be  made  to  hear  the 
bawling  and  so  be  made  miserable  by  what  was 
the  result  of  2)ersonal  carelessness.  Shortly 
afterward,  I  was  coming  home  and  one  of  the 
younger  children  ran  to  meet  me.  She  stum- 
bled on  the  brick  walk  and  fell  and  got  a  rather 
severe  bump  on  her  nose  and  was  generally 
shaken  up.  She  started  in  for  a  good  cry, 
but  seeing  me  she  suddenly  recalled  what  I  had 
said  and  through  her  sobs  uttered  this :  "I  am 
not  making  everf/hodi/  miserable.''  It  is  need- 
less to  say  she  got  all  the  consolations,  but  it 
has  been  a  source  of  great  comfort  and  im- 


32't  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

pressive  gratitude  to  me,  that  this  particular 
child  afterward,  threatened  with  an  illness 
which  might  well  have  ruined  her  life,  and 
where  recovery  was  contingent  upon  excep- 
tional ohedience  and  self-control,  came  through 
gloriously  and  is  to  me  a  miracle.  Nothing 
can  possibly  persuade  me  that  this  child,  now  a 
college  student,  does  not  owe  her  life,  in  part, 
to  the  early  assimilation  of  that  principle  of 
self-restraint,  which  became  the  means  of  her 
physical  salvation. 

These  things  will  occur  many  times  when 
there  seems  to  be  a  conflict  of  duties.  "WHien 
children's  interests  seem  to  clash,  they  must  be 
given  a  chance  to  work  out  manfully  their  own 
decisions,  even  at  an  early  age.  I  beheve  my- 
self in  strong  govermnent.  I  am  a  strong 
believer  in  authority.  But  strongly  as  I  am 
personally  bent  in  this  way,  there  is  probably 
no  household  where  greater  freedom  has  pre- 
vailed and  where  less  coercion  has  been  em- 
ployed. I  believe  this  to  be  due  to  the  early 
instruction  in  ethical  matters  in  the  scientific 
way. 

From  personal  duties  to  social  or  communal 
duties  is  a  short  step  and  the  step  is  taken  eas- 
ily and  naturally  where  there  are  any  ideas  to 
work  upon.  These  same  children  evolved 
many  community  rules  of  their  own  wliich  were 


ETHICS  325 

interesting  to  me,  as  having  a  decisive  bearing 
upon  childhood  teaching  in  ethics  as  opposed 
to  mere  formulas.  For  instance,  I  have  just 
been  in  the  kitchen  where  I  saw  a  huge  plate 
of  cookies  which  one  of  these  children  has  just 
been  baking,  a  child  no  longer,  of  course. 
Over  the  place  there  is  a  sign  marked  F.  H.  B. 
which  means  "Family  Hold  Back."  The 
story  of  this  injunction  is  that  years  ago  when 
the  mother  made  cookies  or  new  bread,  no  limi- 
tations were  placed  upon  their  consumj^tion, 
unless  there  happened  to  be  occasion  for  it, 
company  being  expected  or  something  of  the 
sort.  Well,  the  children  themselves  evolved 
the  "family  hold  back"  sign  for  their  own  guid- 
ance and  soon  applied  it  to  other  things,  ber- 
ries if  they  had  been  berrying,  or  other  things 
which  had  been  gathered.  I  well  recall  how 
impressively  they  came  to  inform  me  that  I 
was  exempt  from  the  F.  H.  B.  rule! 

Now  what  was  this?  Simply  the  recogni- 
tion of  a  community,  as  separate  from  a  per- 
sonal interest.  That  sign  was  never  dis- 
obeyed. In  a  similar  manner,  I  often  caused 
personal  caprices  in  taste  to  disappear,  by 
pointing  out  that  a  happy  household  was  im- 
possible where  everybody  was  insisting  that 
his  or  her  tastes  had  to  be  consulted  at  every 
moment.     Social  ethics  in  this  manner  came 


326  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

to  be  a  natural  subject  of  discussion.  The  peo- 
ple at  church,  the  habits  of  the  people  in  the 
town  and  village,  the  behavior  of  men  in  public 
life,  public  and  political  questions,  all  came  to 
be  naturally  discussed  under  the  general  prin- 
ciples which  were  being  exemplified  ever}'  day 
in  the  household.  I  often  raised  these  ques- 
tions as  we  read  the  newspapers  to  them,  and 
asked  them  to  judge  what  they  would  do 
under  such  circumstances,  after  the  manner  of 
early  Greek  education.  It  was  always  inter- 
esting to  me  to  see  with  what  accuracy  they 
judged  public  men  (as  I  view  it,  of  course) 
for  their  acts. 

The  contrast  between  jmhlic  and  imvate 
aspects  of  moral  questions  should  receive  early 
attention,  and  social  interests,  in  their  larger 
sense,  should  early  be  brought  to  the  notice  of 
the  child.  If  there  are  several  children  in  a 
household,  these  matters  come  up  naturally 
and  are  rationally  settled  generally,  but  their 
guidance  for  instructional  use  is  a  very  im- 
portant part  of  intensive  education.  Nothing 
admits  of  so  many  qualifications,  nothing  al- 
lows so  many  questions  w^hich  are  real  and  just 
in  their  relation  to  the  question  under  discus- 
sion, as  the  matter  of  moral  action.  It  may 
fairly  he  said  that  the  right  kind  of  thinking 
here  tcill  help  to  right  every  other  kind  of 


ETHICS  327 

thinking.  It  is  important  too  to  bring  into 
this  realm  the  questions  of  knowledge,  like  the 
possibility  of  complete  knowledge,  how  far 
right  judgments  are  possible,  and  the  func- 
tion of  passing  judgment  on  men  and  events 
and  actions.  ]Most  mothers,  in  fact,  do  try  to 
do  this,  because  they  have  to  do  it  often  to  find 
out  just  what  it  is  they  are  to  deal  with,  in 
training  the  character  of  their  children.  If  it 
is  done  in  set  terms  and  w^ith  a  view  to  causing 
the  child  to  think  in  terms  which  make  the  pos- 
sibility of  scientific  thought,  so  much  the  bet- 
ter. 

The  question  of  veraciiy  should  be  discussed 
in  many  forms  in  relation  to  many  matters  and 
under  many  guises.  Truthfulness  and  verac- 
ity should  be  compared.  The  right  to  reti- 
cence, the  obligation  to  speak,  and  the  moral 
effect  of  each,  form  interesting  questions. 
How  interesting  may  be  seen  in  the  current 
news  when  men,  apparently  of  the  highest 
standing,  differ  as  to  their  duty  in  such  mat- 
ters. There  is  hardly  a  community  that  docs 
not  from  time  to  time  present  questions  with 
which  the  life  of  the  whole  community  is  in- 
volved. Great  strikes,  or  problems  of  city 
politics  and  administration,  the  care  of  roads 
and  highways,  the  laying  of  ta^ves,  all  these 
have  an  important  place  here.     Incidentally 


328  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

elementary  government  may  and  should  be 
taught  here  and  the  relation  of  moral  action 
to  government  clearly  indicated,  the  lack  of 
which  is  the  most  lamentable  fact  in  the  pub- 
lic life  of  America  to-day. 

Here  you  may  also  begin  to  give  some  ele- 
mentary instruction  in  the  meaning  and  uses 
of  law.  There  is  probably  nothing  about 
which  the  public  mind  is  so  perverted  at  the 
present  moment,  as  the  meaning  of  law,  the 
administration  of  the  law,  and  the  status  of 
courts,  judges  and  the  like.  It  is  wise  to 
teach  the  httle  people  hoto  courts  came  about 
and  what  law  has  done  for  civilization,  what  it 
means  to  weigh  evidence  and  what  it  signi- 
fies to  render  a  decision  on  the  weight  of  evi- 
dence. This  looks  very  mature  and  "oldish" 
as  one  says  it,  but  in  practice  it  is  not  difficult 
and  the  results  are  very  important.  Law  and 
lawlessness  begin  in  my  judgment  in  the 
home,  and  in  the  habits,  instiiiction  and  gen- 
eral attitudes  of  parents.  But  the  obedience 
which  is  worth  anything  to  the  community  is 
one  which  is  based  upon  rationality  and  not 
merely  upon  blind  acceptance  of  what  is  or- 
dered by  somebody  who  appears  to  have  the 
authority  to  give  commands. 

Law  naturally  suggests  liberty  as  a  con- 
trast.    What    libertv    is    as    contrasted    with 


ETHICS  829 

license  can  be  shown  in  a  thousand  ways  and 
should  be.  Libert?/  under  law  is  the  greatest 
lesson  one  has  to  learn  in  tliis  world,  not 
merely  with  relation  to  action,  but  hardly  less 
with  relation  to  opinions  and  the  formation 
and  expression  of  judgments.  Tliis  last  is 
very  important.  The  uses  of  speech,  the  right 
to  speak  and  the  limits  of  speech  are  very  im- 
portant things  to  master.  You  may  find  your 
cases  made  for  you  in  any  newspaper,  by 
simply  studying  the  utterances  of  public  men. 
Proprieties  of  utterance  in  times  of  war,  and 
utterance  of  opinions  in  times  when  diplomatic 
negotiations  are  in  progress,  are  matters  fresh 
in  the  public  mind  at  this  moment.  Example 
goes  a  long  way,  of  course,  but  it  is  not  neces- 
sary merely  to  show  the  way  but  also  to  show 
the  "why." 

The  commoner  social  relations  will  natu- 
rally come  in  for  friendly  comment  because 
they  cannot  be  avoided.  The  ordinary  social 
life  of  most  families  carries  with  it  comment 
on  the  happenings  of  the  communitjj,  and  tlie 
ordinary  social  occurrences  of  one  kind  and 
another  may  either  be  made  an  instrument  for 
the  mental  enlargement  of  the  children  or  may 
be  made  a  means  for  their  social  degradation. 
Who  has  not  been  aghast  to  hear  tlie  free  and 
anarchic  discussion  of  neighbors  and   fellow 


330  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

citizens  by  parents  in  the  presence  of  their 
children,  in  a  manner  which  could  not  possibly 
eventuate  in  anything  but  the  destruction  of 
just  judgment  and  kindly  and  honorable 
opinions  of  mankind !  These  things  are  very 
much  more  important  than  they  seem,  be- 
cause they  will  indicate  to  the  child  that  what 
is  taking  place  in  its  own  home  is  very  likely 
what  is  taking  place  in  other  homes  and  that 
this  is  the  normal  and  natural  way  of  passing 
judgments  and  forming  opinions.  Of  course, 
it  can  result  in  nothing  but  what  one  finds 
everywhere,  petty  and  contemptible  jealousies, 
miserable  subterfuges,  social  lying  and  in- 
trigues, the  abomination  of  much  of  the  social 
life  of  to-day.  The  manner  of  it  and  the  prac- 
tice of  it  begins  with  the  listening  children. 

On  the  contrary,  when  these  things  are 
made  the  occasion  for  an  effort  to  test  the  ac- 
curacy of  statements  and  inferences,  whether 
they  do  or  do  not  conform  to  a  fair  and  hon- 
prable  moral  standard  and  what  the  moral  at- 
titude to  these  things  should  be,  there  is  a 
distinct  gain  to  everybody  concerned.  There 
are  many  matters  about  which  we  are  reticent 
where  we  should  speak.  And  many  more 
about  w^hich  we  talk  too  freely,  when  we  should 
be  reticent.  The  critical  attitude  is  a  good 
one  here,  when  it  works  all  ways  at  once,  both 


ETHICS  831 

outwardly  and  inwardly.  Above  all  the  cul- 
tivation of  a  desire  first  for  the  facts  and  then 
the  weighing  of  the  meaning  of  social  facts  is 
of  great  importance  in  the  training  of  the 
child.  The  same  thing  applies  to  the  great 
occurrences  of  the  community.  It  is  a  good 
thing  to  show  children  at  a  comparatively  early 
period  the  different  ti/j^es  of  life  in  the  com- 
munity, to  point  out  the  useful  people  and  the 
useless  people.  It  is  good  to  go  to  the  indus- 
trial estabhslmients  so  that  the  child  can  get 
an  adequate  idea  of  how  the  things  it  takes  for 
granted  are  produced,  and  what  the  human 
factor  in  them  signifies. 

It  will  be  a  great  illumination  to  many  chil- 
dren to  see  what  other  children  do  with  their 
lives.  To  go  into  a  great  industrial  establish- 
ment and  see  hundreds  of  men  and  women  at 
work,  to  note  the  regularity  of  their  occupa- 
tion, to  see  the  disciphne  and  self -subjection 
involved,  and  to  see  that  it  is  understood  that 
this  goes  on  year  in  and  year  out,  is  to  make 
an  impression  which  will  never  be  lost.  Ut- 
terly apart  from  the  interest  of  the  work  itself, 
special  attention  should  be  given  to  the  human 
beings  who  are  doing  this  work,  and  questions 
raised  as  to  their  point  of  view  as  to  life,  work, 
recreation,  pleasure,  the  worth  of  existence, 
and  the  limits  of  initiative  and  development, 


332  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

which  comes  to  persons  under  such  conditions. 
Nothing  so  impressed  me  in  this  matter  as  the 
ignorance  of  a  wealthy  classmate  of  mine  at 
Harvard,  a  man  who  has  since  devoted  him- 
self to  helping  his  fellow  men  with  conspicu- 
ous success,  when  I  went  with  him  to  see  one  of 
the  factories  of  Massachusetts  in  operation. 
The  contrast  between  his  own  beautiful,  lux- 
urious and  abundant  life,  and  the  narrow,  re- 
stricted and  maimed  existence  of  many  of 
these  people,  was  never  forgotten  by  him.  I 
shall  tell  that  story  some  day  too.  He  often 
said  to  me  that  children  should  never  be  per- 
mitted to  grow  up  without  some  kind  of  rea- 
sonably full  knowledge  of  how  other  children 
grow  up  and  how  human  beings  spend  their 
lives. 

This  naturally  leads  one  to  talk  about  privi- 
leges and  immunities.  Why  are  some  people 
rich  and  others  poor?  Why  are  some  edu- 
cated and  some  ignorant?  Why  are  some 
efficient  and  others  inefficient?  These  are 
problems  that  may  not  be  attacked  too  soon, 
especially  on  the  moral  side.  How  much  does 
equipment  have  to  do  with  success?  And 
what  is  success  anyway?  "WHio  is  judge  of 
when  a  man's  w^ork  is  well  done?  Who  is  to 
control  his  opportunity  for  making  the  most 
of  himself?     Have  men  generally  the  oppor- 


ETHICS  SS8 

tunity  to  make  all  tliere  is  in  them  come  to  the 
surface?  If  not,  why  not?  What  is  the  rela- 
tion of  success  and  effectiveness  to  conditions 
of  life?  Which  predominates  in  the  ultimate 
result,  the  man  or  the  surroundings?  AVhat 
is  the  meaning  of  tools?  Where  do  tools  come 
from?  What  part  do  industry,  skill  and  per- 
severance and  education  have  in  the  making  of 
life?  Are  imvileges  the  result  of  these,  or  of 
something  else?  You  can  easily  get  to  some 
of  the  most  searching  things  in  life  in  this  easy 
way.  And  perhaps  it  won't  hurt  any  of  us  to 
do  this  for  our  own  sakes  as  well  as  the  chil- 
dren! 

You  will  find  that  as  you  deal  with  nature 
studies  of  one  kind  and  another,  that  the  moral 
questions  come  up,  and  this  is  the  time  to  show 
the  difference  between  natural  law  and  moral 
law  and  indeed  the  relations  of  one  to  the 
other.  Natural  relationships  bring  certain 
kinds  of  rights  and  duties.  Often  questions 
which  stagger  us,  when  put  independent  of 
some  concrete  matter,  become  easy  to  handle 
when  we  deal  with  them  impersonally,  and  this 
is  especially  true  when  we  deal  with  the  ques- 
tion of  sex,  though  people  will  always  differ 
as  to  what  they  ought  to  do  about  such  matters, 
and  very  properly,  since  it  is  by  no  means  easy 
to  dogmatize  about  it.     But  the  pul^lic  discus- 


S34  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

sions  are  so  frequent  now,  and  the  newspapers 
and  magazines  talk  so  freely,  that  since  you 
are  to  j^roduce  a  reading  child  and  a  thinking 
child  you  might  as  well  deal  with  it  yourself. 
Of  course  the  basis  has  already  been  laid  in 
habits  which  you  are  insisting  upon  quite  inde- 
pendent of  any  instruction,  duties  which  you 
lay  down,  and  requirements  which  you  make, 
merely  because  you  are  set  to  do  it  and  about 
which  you  will  permit  no  particular  question 
to  be  raised  till  they  have  become  necessary  to 
the  child's  comfort.  Cleanliness,  tchen  it  has 
become  a  habit  becomes  a  protection.  Sound 
hygienic  living  at  first,  inculcated  by  mere  au- 
thority, soon  becomes  its  own  sponsor,  because 
departure  from  it  means  discomfort  and  un- 
happiness.  But  this  having  been  done,  cul- 
tivate the  discussion  of  the  inner  things.  And 
encourage  the  expression  of  ideas  without  re- 
gard to  whether  they  are  satisfactory  or  not 
and  never  show  contempt  for  the  opinion. 

So  much  has  been  said  about  respect  for  the 
child's  personality  that  seems  to  me  mere 
fudge,  that  I  hesitate  to  say  my  own  word. 
By  all  means  have  respect  for  the  child's  per- 
sonality and  especially  by  never  showing  con- 
tempt for  anything  that  has  real  and  genuine 
interest  for  the  child.  But  never  lose  sight 
of  the  fact  that  the  main  interest  for  you  is 


ETHICS  BSS 

keeping  the  attitude  of  respect  for  superior 
judgment  and  superior  experience  and  only 
raise  the  question  iichether  it  is  superior  judg- 
ment and  experience.  Reverence  for  author- 
ity, age,  and  the  abihty  to  endure  the  eccen- 
tricities and  peculiarities  of  disposition  on  the 
part  of  mature  persons,  should  be  learned  by 
children,  and  when  this  process  which  I  have 
been  talking  about  is  carried  through,  you  will 
find  the  child  making  qualifications  in  its  own 
way,  which  are  very  illuminating.  Take  a 
case  of  my  own.  I  believe  and  have  always 
believed  strongly  in  authority.  I  came  to  it 
by  experience,  by  philosophical  study,  and  by 
religious  conviction.  But,  of  course,  you  can 
become  overbeamed  on  any  subject.  Ordi- 
narily, life  itself  makes  the  necessary  qualifica- 
tions. But  one  of  the  things  which  has 
always  been  a  special  source  of  ii-ritation  to 
me  has  been  carelessness. 

In  our  home  I  dreaded  exhibitions  of  care- 
lessness even  more  than  infractions  of  rules, 
and  I  do  still,  because  I  dread  the  influence 
and  power  of  irresponsible  action  more  than 
I  do  positive  action,  even  when  it  is  bad. 
Well,  my  stern  rebukes  of  things  sometimes 
led  me  to  be  unjust,  as,  for  example,  articles 
might  be  broken  v/ithout  the  child  who  caused 
the  break  being  aware  of  it,  as  in  play  or 


886  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

without  noticing  it.  On  one  such  occasion  a 
stern  rebuke,  which  landed  on  nobody  in  par- 
ticular, but  which  silenced  excuses  because  I 
rather  tartly  exclaimed,  "Then  nobody  did 
it  I"  when  each  child  disclaimed  the  act,  led  to 
the  organization  by  the  children  of  "The  Scape- 
goat Club"  in  which  it  was  agreed  that  some- 
body should  take  the  blame,  though  uncon- 
scious of  it.  I  may  have  already  referred  to 
it.  The  important  thing  was  that  this  was  a 
clear  recognition  of  my  defect,  and  a  pro- 
vision for  it.  I  cannot  see  that  it  ever  inter- 
fered w^ith  my  children's  affection  or  obedi- 
ence. They  knew  my  horror  of  carelessness 
and  sought  to  pacify  me  and  they  did. 

The  saving  clause  of  this  transaction  was 
that  it  disturbed  no  moral  relations.  They 
knew  that  my  anxiety  was  for  them  and  not 
for  the  mere  cost  or  value  of  any  article.  That 
made  them  attempt  to  provide  a  modus  Vi- 
vendi just  as  they  did  with  the  cookies.  But  it 
showed  moral  discrimination  and  appreciation 
and  this  is  the  important  thing.  Happy  is 
the  house  where  parents  and  children  are  thus 
morally  related,  because  it  makes  for  unity  of 
action  and  purpose  and  ideals.  It  makes  for 
freedom  of  thought  and  Hberty  in  action.  It 
releases  powers  which  otherwise  would  be 
bound  up  either  in  fear  or  lashed  into  resist- 


ETHICS  337 

ance.  I  have  known  it  to  happen  in  both  these 
forms,  because  there  was  no  moral  common 
denominator  in  the  home. 

All  ethical  instruction  ultimately  raises 
questions  of  religion  and  concerning  these  I 
will  not  say  much,  having  discussed  them  else- 
where. But  I  think  I  may  add,  that  religion 
is  the  surest  handmaid  of  every  other  interest 
in  life,  because  it  harmonizes  with  every  otiier 
interest,  which  is  rational  and  which  has  any 
ideal  element  in  it.  But  let  not  your  religious 
teaching  become  mere  moral  harassing.  Link 
it  with  history,  with  art,  with  public  life  and 
service,  with  the  enjoyment  of  life,  and  with 
the  glory  of  the  world.  Cause  it  to  be  an  all 
pervasive  thing  rather  than  a  specific  set  of 
acts  and  duties.  Your  use  of  the  Bible  for 
English  will  help  to  take  away  the  mechanical 
idea  of  religion,  and  there  is  this  to  be  said:  the 
more  mechanical  your  religious  life  for  the 
child  is  permitted  to  become  the  surer  will  be 
the  reaction  from  it.  If  you  want  your  child's 
religion  to  be  real,  it  must  be  free  in  the  sense 
in  which  I  have  indicated.  It  must  be  linked 
with  all  kinds  of  human  interests,  and  it  must 
show  that  it  is  related  to  all  the  things  which 
call  for  energy,  power  of  decision,  character, 
skill  and  ability.  The  reason  why  religion 
has  so  often  seemed  to  fail,  is  that  it  has  not 


338  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

been  linked  with  any  great  paramount  interest 
by  which  human  life  is  governed.  Your  min- 
ister should  be  an  important  personage  to  you, 
if  he  is  worth  it.  That  he  may  be  worth  it, 
help  to  get  one  who  is  worth  something.  The 
church,  whatever  your  sect,  should  be  of  tre- 
mendous interest  to  you,  therefore  see  to  it 
that  you  help  to  make  it  worth  while.  Your 
moral  alliances  of  every  description  cannot 
help  but  exercise  a  powerful  influence  upon 
your  children,  whether  you  wish  it  or  not.  We 
have  to  be  in  the  world  with  other  human  be- 
ings, and  we  have  to  be  Hke  them  enough  to 
live  with  them.  But  it  is  for  us  to  determine 
whether  our  children  shall  be  submerged  by 
them  or  hold  the  rudder  of  their  own  careers 
and  steer  by  their  own  light,  reason  and  con- 
science, and  this  you  must  help  to  secure  by 
helping  to  make  those  influences  which  you 
cannot  escape,  what  they  ought  to  be.  I  was 
always  anxious  about  the  ministers  my  chil- 
dren were  to  hear,  when  they  were  not  listen- 
ing to  me.  I  was  always  anxious  who  com- 
manded their  attention  and  always  sought  to 
know  why.  I  always  noted  what  kinds  of 
personality  gained  influence  and  afl'ection 
with  them,  because  these  were  indexes  of  what 
I  should  do  myself.  You  would  feel  grieved, 
I  know,  if  vou  should  find  out,  what  is  un- 


ETHICS  889 

happily  too  often  true,  that  your  child  is  tak- 
ing its  social  ideals  from  people  not  in  your 
home  and  its  moral  attitudes  from  persons 
who  are  more  careful  to  define  them,  than 
you  yourself.  Therefore  ohserve  these  things 
carefully.  Let  nobody  rob  you  of  your  great- 
est jewel  in  life.  Never  permit  anyone  to  ac- 
quire a  superior  influence  or  power  over  your 
own.  That  you  may  do  this,  may  I  say  you 
must  he  superior  to  any  other.  Nothing  in 
heaven  or  earth  can  prevent  a  nobler  spirit,  a 
better  mind  and  a  purer  heart,  from  getting  a 
superior  influence  with  j^our  child,  if  these  are 
matched,  against  your  own.  Nothing  can 
prevent  greater  skill  and  greater  devotion 
from  winning  their  hearts.  I  know  this,  be- 
cause I  have  often  matched  myself  against 
unworthy,  foolish  and  careless  parents  for  the 
children's  sakes,  and  have  never  had  any  diffi- 
culty in  winning. 

But  this  ought  normally  never  to  he  pos- 
sible, because  natural  affection,  constant  inter- 
course, intimacy  of  relation  and  undiluted  con- 
fidence between  parents  and  children  are  a 
mighty  barrier.  These  childlike  loyalties  are 
very  beautiful  to  witness,  even  when  they  are 
foolish.  For  example,  a  friend  of  ours  was 
a  beautiful  cook  who  made  dainties  which  we 
never  could  equal  in  our  own  home.     We  all 


310  TEACHING  IX  THE  HOME 

knew  it  and  we  all  gloried  in  the  artist  cook, 
as  our  friend  really  was.  But  again  and 
again,  when  she  tried  to  get  our  children  to 
admit  that  her  products  were  better  than 
"mamma's"  the  determination  to  stand  by 
"mamma"  asserted  itself,  in  spite  of  the  ob- 
vious recognition  of  the  better  product  of  the 
artist.  Up  to  a  certain  point  this  is  most  ad- 
mirable. In  morals,  it  should  always  be  the 
case.  Children  should  feel  called  upon  to 
stand  on  the  parental  platform  against  all  cre- 
ation. That  they  may  stand  upon  it  irorth- 
ily,  it  is  your  privilege  and  mine  to  make  it 
worth  standing  upon  through  thick  and  thin. 
The  moral  solidarity  of  the  home  is  its  strength 
and  its  glory.  Cast  not  away  wantonly  this 
pearl  of  greatest  price. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  purpose  of  this  chapter  is  to  indicate 
some  use  of  the  tools  which  you  are  to  em- 
ploy for  teaching  in  the  manner  in  which 
I  have  shown  it  to  be  done  in  the  previous 
chapters.  You  will  have  gathered  from  what 
has  been  written,  that  you  yourself  are  the  chief 
source  of  instruction  for  your  children,  and 
that  the  main  value  of  this  work  is,  that  it 
comes  to  the  children  with  your  own  interest 
and  through  your  maturity.  That  is  where 
the  home  teaching  differs  from  teaching  in  the 
school,  where  the  relation  is  formal  and  pro- 
fessional. With  you  the  relation  is  one  of 
identity  of  interest,  and  linked  with  absolute 
authority  and  finality  of  judgment  and  pro- 
gram. Hence  you  are  not  merely  to  show 
what  is  to  be  done  but  join  in  the  doing.  I 
have  shown  in  the  new  edition  of  the  School 
in  the  Home,  in  the  chapter  on  the  "Mon- 
tessori  System  and  the  Home,"  that  the  gi'cat 
feature  of  that  jDlan  is  its  emphasis  upon  the 
influence  of  the  parent  and  the  parental  rela- 

341 


312  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

tion.  Just  keep  it  constantly  before  your 
mind  that  you  are  the  important  feature  in  the 
entire  scheme  of  work. 

Your  work  lies  in  the  first  instance  largely 
with  books.  That  means  that  if  there  is  a 
library  in  your  vicinity  your  first  business  is 
to  get  thoroughly  acquainted  with  it.  Let  no 
week  go  by  that  you  do  not  go  to  the  library, 
and  make  yourself  thoroughly  familiar  with 
what  there  is  in  it.  The  librarian  will  be  only 
too  glad  to  give  you  any  assistance  you  may 
want,  and  you  should  learn  how  to  use  a  card 
catalogue  and  how  to  get  at  things  quickly. 
You  should  also  study  the  lists  of  new  addi- 
tions, and  get  quickly  anything  that  seems  to 
promise  help  in  your  work.  Use  the  libraries 
a  great  deal  even  if  you  have  many  books  at 
home  because  there  are  ahvays  things  there 
which  you  cannot  possibly  have.  If  you  can 
take  the  child  and  introduce  him  also  and  let 
him  early  associate  his  childhood  with  the  li- 
brary and  its  contents,  do  that  also. 

You  should  have  first  of  all  for  your  work 
a  good  dictionary,  preferably  one  that  gives  the 
etymology  of  words  and  their  history.  If  you 
cannot  have  such  a  dictionary  yourself,  when 
you  go  to  the  library,  make  lists  of  words 
which  you  are  to  look  up  there  and  get  your 
knowledge  from  the  large  dictionaries  there. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  343 

Then  you  should  have  some  first  class  en- 
cyclopcedia.  These  two  tools  are  absolutely 
necessary.  I  should  add  to  these  a  good  large 
atlas  and  a  large  wall  maj)  of  the  world  hung 
where  it  can  readily  be  consulted.  In  fact, 
gi'oup  all  these  things  where  you  can  get  at 
them  readily.  What  you  cannot  have  by  you, 
have  frequent  access  to  at  your  library.  In 
many  states  the  state  university  will  gladly 
cooperate  both  as  to  help  in  studies  and  help  in 
books.  The  libraiy  of  the  University  of  Ore- 
gon, for  example,  sends  out  books  to  f)eople  all 
over  the  state  on  application.  Other  state 
universities  do  this  also  and  you  can  thus  get 
help  on  particular  matters  by  writing  to  some 
responsible  person.  This  is  especially  tine,  if 
you  care  to  get  information  on  some  special 
science.  The  head  of  the  department  will  usu- 
ally welcome  your  inquiry  and  set  you  in  the 
way  of  getting  what  you  want  to  know. 

You  should  have  likewise  some  good  book  of 
synonyms.  I  shall  later  mention  some  specific 
works,  but  you  can  easily  locate  one,  because 
there  are  many  which  are  not  costlj''  and  it  is 
absolutely  needful  for  your  purpose.  Write 
to  the  leading  publishers  for  their  catalogues 
and  study  these.  By  the  study  of  these  you 
will  find  out  what  is  being  published,  by  whom, 
and  you  will  fijid  this  of  itself  will  introduce 


844  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

you  to  a  large  area  of  information  which  will 
be  very  useful  to  you.  Such  linns  as  Ginn 
and  Co.,  D.  C.  Heath  and  Co.,  Houghton 
Mifflin  and  Co.,  of  Boston;  and  Heniy  Holt 
and  Co.,  The  JNIacmillan  Co.,  Appletons,  and 
Crowell,  of  New  York,  as  w^ell  as  others,  will 
give  you  a  great  deal  of  information,  through 
their  catalogues.  I  have  never  failed  for  years 
to  get  a  full  set  of  these  catalogues  and  many 
others,  just  to  keep  before  me  what  w^as  being 
done  and  have  by  this  means  often  found  most 
useful  aids  to  my  work. 

Have  a  ^;/a;^^  and  a  program,  and  a  time 
table,  for  your  work.  Aiid  stick  to  it.  Have 
a  different  subject  for  every  day  and  thus  let 
the  days  be  associated  with  some  special  task. 
You  will  find  this  dignifies  the  work  in  the 
mind  of  the  child  and  your  o^vn  mind.  It  will 
also  subconsciously  lead  to  your  organizing 
your  knowledge  for  that  particular  time.  In 
addition  to  all  this,  it  will  mean  that  the  work 
will  be  simplified  and  seem  less  like  a  task. 
There  is  enough  variety  to  prevent  monotony. 
I  found  the  use  of  a  blackboard  most  helpful. 
Other  parents  get  as  good  results  just  by  writ- 
ing materials,  but  I  always  liked  to  see  the 
thing  large  myself  and  my  children  did  too. 
I  think  it  made  for  clearness. 

As  to  English,  you  must  make  the  choice 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  845 

yourself,  but  if  you  will  follow  the  line  of  the 
requirements  for  admission  to  college,  you  will 
be  doing  well  because  most  of  the  stories  can 
be  read  to  little  children  with  profit.  Read  a 
great  deal  of  Shakespeare  and  the  Bible,  of 
course.  Read  out  of  the  standard  authors, 
choosing  things  you  like  best  yourself,  but  also 
doing  a  little  exploring  on  your  o^^^l  account. 
Read  the  books  and  familiarize  the  child  with 
the  literature  which  most  children  approach  at 
about  the  high  school  age.  In  fact,  you  will 
find  it  useful  to  get  such  lists  from  the  school 
superintendent  and  follow  them.  Have  noth- 
ing to  do  with  the  ordinary  "readers"  so-called. 
Most  of  them  are  worse  than  useless.  Study 
literature  all  the  time.  Study  the  biographies 
of  the  leading  authors,  Enghsh  and  American, 
not  exhaustively,  but  enough  to  make  the  child 
familiar  with  the  names.  When  yon  read 
Rip  Van  Winkle,  for  example,  tell  all  you 
can  find  out  about  Washington  Irving.  Sim- 
ilarly of  others.  This  is  just  to  make  the  child 
acquainted  with  the  names.  Some  of  the  facts 
will  stick,  too. 

Teach  grammar  from  a  Latin  grammar  and 
in  connection  with  your  study  of  English,  re- 
membering that  whatever  you  teach,  you  are 
still  teaching  English  and  with  it  grammar. 
But  use  the  forms  and  the  terms  employed  in 


846  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

Latin  grammar.  Any  standard  Latin  gram- 
mar will  answer  your  purpose,  Allen  and 
Greenough's,  Ilarkness,  or  Bennett.  In  this 
connection  also  you  will  find  The  Latin  Word 
List,  by  G.  H.  Browne,  most  useful.  Paul 
R.  Jenks'  Manual  of  Latin  Word  Formation 
will  also  be  found  of  great  service,  and  one  of 
the  most  useful  books  I  have  seen  for  the  use 
I  have  in  mind  is  Dr.  B.  L.  D'Ooge's  Latin  for 
Beginners.  These,  of  course,  are  tools  for 
yourself  and  for  the  fertilization  of  your  own 
mind.  If  you  have  no  previous  knowledge  of 
Latin  yourself  these  will  supply  it  for  your 
purposes.  If  you  care  to  give  yourself  some 
special  preparation,  study  in  connection  with 
these  Prof.  E.  C.  Woolley's  Handbook  of 
Composition. 

As  to  the  other  languages,  I  must  refer  you 
to  the  catalogues  and  you  will  choose  accord- 
ing to  your  predilection  German,  French  or 
Italian.  I  know  the  French  and  German  best 
and  Bierwirth's  Elementary  German  and 
Fraser  and  Squair's  Shorter  French  Course 
will  supply  your  need.  Both  taken  in  connec- 
tion with  small  German  and  French  dictiona- 
ries will  give  you  all  the  materials  you  need. 

For  your  study  of  geography,  you  will  use 
simply  your  map  and  your  globe  and  the  ma- 
terial you  will  find  in  your  other  studies.     But 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  3i7 

I  would  take  this  up  in  connection  with  your 
daily  "current  events"  study,  in  which  your 
map  and  the  things  which  the  locality  suggests 
will  give  you  all  the  geography  you  need. 
Just  keep  in  mind,  I  must  caution  you  again, 
that  you  are  merely  giving  the  little  child  the 
grand  outline  of  things  and  preparing  the  soil. 
You  are  not  acquainting  it  with  unusual  and 
strange  things  but  with  the  great  general 
mass  of  ordinary  knowledge,  without  which  it 
cannot  work  at  anything. 

For  your  study  of  histor^^  you  must  have 
Ploetz'  Epitome,  without  which  you  should 
never  be,  and  which  is  packed  with  all  kinds 
of  things  and,  except  the  dictionary  and  the 
encyclopaedia,  the  most  useful  book  you  will 
have.  You  will  find  in  it  not  merely  history, 
but  geography,  biograplw,  diplomacy,  and 
many  other  things.  You  should  get  some 
standard  American  history  like  Clianning's 
and  get  a  look  at  the  large  Narrative  and 
Critical  History  of  America  in  your  library. 
If  the  library  hasn't  got  it,  make  them  get  it 
because  it  is  packed  with  all  kinds  of  interest- 
ing things  which  you  need  to  know.  In  the 
chapter  on  history  I  have  referred  to  some 
other  works,  just  as  I  have  in  the  chapter  on 
English. 

For  science  teaching  there  is  no  better  book 


S48  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

to  have  at  hand  than  Caldwell  and  Eiken- 
berry's  General  Science  and  if  you  do  not 
care  to  have  a  special  text  book  on  the  other 
sciences,  this  one  will  give  you  a  great  deal  of 
help.  I  have  made  numerous  references  to  it 
already  and  for  practical  use  and  usable  infor- 
mation, it  is  one  of  the  most  available  volumes 
I  know.  It  has  many  practical  experiments 
in  connection  with  its  text  which  make  it  very 
interesting  as  well.  Bergen's  Elements  of 
Botany  and  Professor  Spalding's  Introduc- 
tion to  Botany  are  both  very  useful,  the  latter 
being  specially  adapted  to  your  purpose  be- 
cause of  its  specific  directions  for  teaching  and 
helpful  suggestions.  ]Mr.  Bergen's  book  gives 
more  advanced  and  scientific  information 
which  you  will  find  valuable.  In  this  same 
connection  Mr.  Grant  Allen's  Story  of  the 
Plants,  and  his  Flashlights  on  Nature  are  both 
valuable,  both  as  scientific  materials  and  as  in- 
teresting reading.  Professor  Colton's  Zool- 
ogy, especially  the  second  part,  which  deals 
with  the  practical  side,  you  will  find  almost  in- 
dispensable because  of  its  suggestiveness  and 
helpful  directions.  Lindsay's  Story  of  Ani- 
mal Life  will  be  found  full  of  interest  also. 
For  the  studies  in  geolog}'-  and  indeed  other 
sciences,  the  little  manuals  of  the  Boston  So- 
ciety of  Natural  History  will  be  found  very 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  849 

useful.  Professor  Shaler's  First  Booh  in 
Geology  is  from  a  master  hand.  In  connec- 
tion with  all  these,  as  well  as  hterary  studies, 
as  such,  I  want  to  urge  you  to  have  at  hand 
another  indispensahle  little  book  called  High 
School  Word  Book  by  Sandwick  and  Bacon, 
which  will  give  you  many  things  of  which  I 
have  spoken  again  and  again.  You  will  find 
this  little  book  of  much  service  to  you  in  many 
directions.  If  I  had  had  this  book  when  I 
began  with  my  own  children  my  work  would 
have  been  cut  in  half. 

There  are  two  books  which  you  should  read 
for  your  own  sake  as  well  as  the  children's, 
which  will,  as  I  think,  help  on  the  most  impor- 
tant subject  of  sex  instruction,  nameh'  Tracy 
and  Stimpfl's  Psychology  of  Childhood  and 
Galloway's  Biology  of  Sea\  Taken  in  con- 
nection with  such  a  book  as  Foster  and  Shore's 
Elementary  Physiology,  you  will  have  every- 
thing in  that  direction  that  you  need  and  much 
more  than  you  can  possibly  use.  You  will 
find  here  much  that  is  of  interest  to  you  per- 
sonally entirely  apart  from  the  question  of 
what  you  wisli  to  do  for  your  children.  Dr. 
Florence  Richards'  Hygiene  for  Girls  is  espe- 
cially good  in  its  chosen  field.  For  ethical  in- 
struction such  a  book  as  Professor  Drake's 
Problems  of  Conduct  will  be  found  fertilizing 


S50  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

and  assimilated  by  yourself  will  give  the  ma- 
terials for  a2)proach  to  the  subject  with  the 
children. 

These,  of  course,  are  but  a  few  of  many 
books  equally  good,  and  I  may  add  to  them  in 
some  later  edition  of  this  book.  I  mention 
these  merely  because  I  happen  to  know  them 
and  know  that  you  will  find  them  fitted  to 
what  I  have  in  mind. 

I  think,  too,  I  ought  to  say  a  word  abo\it 
newspapers.  The  weekly  edition  of  the 
Sj)nng field  (Mass.)  Republican  is  the  most 
valuable  newspaper  adjunct  to  household 
training  and  education  I  know  in  the  news- 
paper field,  because  it  combines  so  many  things 
of  first-rate  quality  for  your  purpose.  Its 
editorials  are  in  good  English  and  its  columns 
carefully  edited.  Its  reviews  of  books  are 
good  and  authoritative  generally.  Its  han- 
dling of  literary  and  musical  matters  is  en- 
lightening, and  altogether  any  household  that 
once  gets  in  the  habit  of  reading  it,  will  never 
be  easy  without  it.  For  keeping  abreast  with 
the  leading  ideas  of  the  time  and  having  put 
before  you  what  an  enlightened  citizen  ought 
to  think  and  talk  about,  this  newspaper  has,  I 
believe,  no  equal  in  the  United  States. 

Similarly  we  have  found  the  same  to  be  true, 
though  on  somewhat  different  lines,  of  the 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  351 

semi-weekly  New  York  Evening  Post.  It  is 
not  so  comprehensive  as  the  Springfield  Be- 
publican,  but  in  its  field  authoritative,  and  its 
editorial  discussions  are  the  equivalent  of  a  lib- 
eral education,  read  through  a  series  of  years. 
This  is  true  also  of  its  book  reviews.  Both 
these  newspapers  aim  to  give  the  news  truth- 
fully and  in  a  form  which  will  not  insult  the  in- 
telligence and  taste  of  readers.  It  will  be  of 
much  value  to  your  children  to  be  reared  in  a 
home  where  newspapers  hke  these  are  read  and 
their  opinions  talked  about.  I  think  I  need 
not  say  that  in  suggesting  any  of  the  books  or 
papers  I  have  mentioned  in  this  book,  I  am 
doing  so  in  a  purely  disinterested  fashion.  I 
mean  that  I  have  no  interest  directly  or  indi- 
rectly in  any  of  them,  nor  do  any  of  them  know 
I  am  writing  these  lines.  Many  of  the 
authors,  in  fact,  most  of  them,  I  know  only 
through  their  books. 

Keep  in  touch  with  the  Bureau  of  Educa- 
tion at  Washington  for  their  publications. 
Also  with  the  state  university  of  your  State, 
and  the  school  officials,  as  to  text  books  and 
authorities  about  matters  concerning  which 
you  are  in  doubt.  Get  the  habit  of  looking  at 
all  the  books  in  your  vicinity  wherever  you 
happen  to  find  yourself  and  constantly  add  to 
your  knowledge  of  books  in  this  way.     You 


352  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

will  soon  learn  to  distinguish  between  books  of 
permanent  worth  and  those  of  ephemeral  in- 
terest. Look  into  a  book  before  buying  it.  In 
this  way  you  will  find  yourself  acquiring  an 
ability  to  test  many  books  by  casual  glance 
through  them.  But  always  keep  before  you 
this  one  fact,  that  you  are  getting  all  this  ma- 
terial in  the  book  form  because  that  is  the  form 
in  which  it  is  educationally  negotiable. 

The  matter  of  newspapers  is  much  more  im- 
portant than  is  generally  suspected.  The 
daily  newspaper  which  the  children  see  and 
handle,  and  whose  views  and  news  they  hear 
discussed,  has  a  decided  influence  in  forming 
their  point  of  view  on  many  things.  Children 
should  be  taught  to  read  not  from  books  but 
from  the  newspaper  and  in  connection  with 
current,  vital  things.  They  should  be  taught 
how  to  seek  facts  in  daih'  reports,  and  by  this 
means  get  the  habit  of  knowing  what  is  tak- 
ing place  around  them.  The  newspaper  tliat 
enters  your  house  is  therefore  a  capital  mat- 
ter. 

FINALLY 

Throughout  the  pages  which  have  gone  be- 
fore, I  have  tried  to  give  you  a  fairly  reason- 
able transcript  of  how  I  believe  it  possible  for 
ordinary  people,  who  have  the  welfare  of  their 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  353 

children  on  the  intellectual  side  seriously  at 
heart,  to  build  up  the  mental  life  in  such  a  way 
as  to  not  only  make  the  whole  subsequent 
school  life  vastly  more  productive  than  in  most 
cases  it  now  appears  to  be,  but  also  rear  per- 
sons who  are  actually  superior  persons  in 
themselves,  capable  of  thinking  carefully,  ca- 
pable of  controlling  themselves  in  times  of 
crises,  capable  of  using  their  energies  to  the 
best  possible  profit  for  themselves  and  their 
families,  and  the  communities  in  which  they 
live,  and  calculated  to  help  in  making  a  finer 
and  nobler  civilization.  Always  remember 
that  the  advances  of  the  xvorld  are  not  made 
by  the  thousand  and  one  people  tcho  can  do 
things  fairly  ivell,  but  by  the  fexo  persons  tcho 
are  able  to  do  them  exceptionally  well.  It 
must  be  reasonably  clear  to  almost  all  onlook- 
ers that  most  people,  as  we  see  them,  do  not 
appear  to  get  much  out  of  life  besides  eating, 
drinking  and  sleeping.  INIost  of  them  do  not 
seem  to  be  distinguished  by  anything  in  par- 
ticular. ]\Iost  of  them  leave  no  particular  im- 
press upon  the  communities  in  which  they  live 
and  move  and  have  their  being.  And  this  is 
true,  not  because  they  have  not  the  natural  ca- 
pabilities for  doing  many  of  these  things.  It 
is  chiefly  due  to  the  fact  that  in  the  earlier 
stages  of  their  development,  when  they  were 


35-1  TEACHING  IN  THE  HOME 

making  their  pathway,  nobody  thought  it 
worth  while  to  point  them  wisely  and  train 
them  effectively.  Hence  most  of  them  are  the 
prey  to  the  superior  persons  who  use  them  for 
their  own  purposes.  I  am  firm  in  my  belief, 
often  expressed,  that  given  good  health  and 
freedom  from  organic  defects,  the  difference 
in  the  possibilities  of  most  children  is  very 
slight.  I  do  not  believe  most  geniuses  are 
such  except  by  contrast  with  the  general  indo- 
lence and  stupidity  around  them.  Given  in- 
tensive culture,  a  high  degree  of  self-control 
and  self -expenditure,  rational  ideals  and  spe- 
cific aims  early  in  life,  almost  any  child  will 
surpass  expectations.  The  question  is  simply, 
in  the  first  instance,  whether  the  parents  will 
wake  up  to  this  fact,  and  recognizing  it,  will 
supply  the  first  aids  to  superior  personality. 
That  is  what  this  book  seeks  to  do,  and  I  close 
with  the  assurance  that  even  approximately 
following  out  the  line  of  procedure  I  have  in- 
dicated, you  will  have  joy  and  satisfaction  be- 
yond expression.  You  will  not  only  have  the 
joy  of  what  your  child  will  achieve,  but  have 
the  added  joy  of  knowing  that  in  part,  at  least, 
it  was  your  own  character  and  devotion  that 
produced  the  result. 

THE  END 


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